There’s something about musical prodigies that can cause me to waste an entire work day on Youtube. Today is Friday and I stayed up far past my bedtime last night. That means today is one of those days. I have compiled an assortment of videos for your viewing pleasure.

Today’s theme is Flight of the Bumblebee by Rinsky-Korsakov. There’s a point in every musician’s life when they discover that their fingers (or mouth in the case of wind/brass instruments) are able to move at speeds above human comprehension. Once a piece of music is memorized, the fingers are eventually able to play it as if they were autonomous. That is to say, the musician performs the song unconsciously.

I too have experienced the bliss of whizzing through a series of notes at lightning speed (way faster than they’re supposed to be played) and thinking I was invincible. That was before I saw the following videos.

We’ll start at amazing and work our way up to uber-amazing.

That was Flight of the Bumblebee on a good old fashion piano by a guy named Maksim. I estimate about 1% of the world’s population can do or has done this already. I mean, pianos are pretty common, right?

Let’s take it up a notch.

That was Luis Moreno on electric guitar. I estimate about 0.1% of the world’s population can pull that off. I realize guitars are even more common than pianos, but let’s put the amazingness of this in perspective. I played piano for 5 years and was at the point where I could probably play this piece on piano - although not quite as fast as Maksim did it. I’ve been playing guitar for twice as long and there isn’t a chance in heck that I could even attempt to play the first 2 seconds of Moreno’s version.

Hungry for more? It gets even better.

That was David Childs on the euphonium. I estimate about .00001% of the world’s population could achieve what Childs achieves. Why? Because there can’t be more than 30 euphoniums in the entire world. What is a euphonium?

OK, now get ready to step into the big leagues.

That was Jose Feliciano on acoustic/classical guitar. I know what you’re thinking. Let me explain to you why this is better than you think. 2 reasons. First, did you see at the end how he continued playing notes above the highest frets of the guitar? If you don’t know what a fret is, don’t fret. Just watch for the part at the very end where both of his hands are on the base of the guitar and he’s playing the strings above the hole of the guitar. Yeah, that’s impossible. Second - and this one’s gonna convince you if the first one didn’t - Jose Feliciano is blind. BLIND I TELL YOU! That means he makes those huge jumps of 10+ frets at a time using only his mind.

Seriously though, those videos were nothing compared to this next one. Hold on to your butts.

That was Alexander Dmitriev on accordian. Why is that awesome? Because he could whoop anyone at Guitar Hero. It doesn’t need much more explanation than that.

You might as well have just started reading this post right here, because everything you’ve just seen is meaningless compared to this next video.

That’s Greg Pattillo on flute. That’s right, he just beatboxed Flight of the Bumblebee. All my goals and dreams have just been shattered. I am no longer inspired to be the best at anything ever again.

Since I loved that video so much, here’s one last bonus video because I’m feeling very beneficent and magnanimous since it’s Friday. It’s the same guy doing one of my favorite musical suites: Peter and the Wolf. BEATBOX STYLE.

I don’t know what it is with George Lucas and terrible rehashes of once-untarnished film sagas. Everything he touches nowadays turns to dust. If you choose to see a Lucas film, you have chosen poorly. Maybe my brother put it best when he told me “I knew George Lucas had changed forever when he modified the Greedo/Solo dispute for the re-release of Star Wars: Episode 4 and made Greedo the one to shoot first instead of Solo.”

He was right, Lucas has gone incredibly soft… and lame.

They should have buried the series after The Last Crusade. I’m extremely sad to say that Indiana Jones and the Kingom of the Crystal Skull disappointed me more than Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

I left work early the first Friday it opened to see it by myself. I love seeing movies by myself because it lets me fully experience the film without any distractions. However, no amount of preparation can prevent the movie itself from distracting me with unbelievable scenes, bad acting, and a terrible plot. Oh no, The Bad section is going to be long…

The Good

There were so few good things about this movie. I can actually list them out - all four of them.

• 1. Shia Labeouf. This guy keeps impressing me. I am officially a Shia fan. I wish I could say he saved the movie.
• 2. Cate Blanchett.
• 3. The Greaser/Jock diner fight.
• 4. The graphics during the alien aircraft launch.

The Bad

I don’t know which was worse, the plot or the acting. Let’s start with the acting since I believe Harrison Ford to be the main reason the first three movies were so good. I think Harrison has lost his touch. He was really good in What Lies Beneath, which is one of the last movies I remember seeing him in. But that was 8 years ago. He looked a lot older and less in control in Indiana Jones 4, and the one-liners, smirks, and panicked fight sequences that we have come to love him for are non-existent. Most of these qualities were instead found in Shia.

The plot didn’t even equal up to The Mummy movies, which I had previously defined as “Indiana Jones knock-offs”. It’s funny - I would venture so far as to say that Indiana Jones 4 is a knock-off of The Mummy.

What really made the first three films memorable, aside from Harrison Ford, was the story. Hunting after supernatural artifacts that, deep down, we believe really exist makes for a great story. The Arc of the Covenant actually existed at some point in time. A magnetic alien skull make of crystal and quartz from outer space did not really exist at some point in time. It could have, I guess. But we don’t know for a fact that it did like we know with the Holy Grail. As far as plot complexity, IJ4 was on par with the first films, but it was the substance that really bothered me. It seemed very manufactured.

The film also lacked the sort of “heart” that the first three had. I don’t know how to describe it - atmosphere, environment, feel… “heart”. This one is tough to explain, and I am not talking about nostalgia. The fight scene on top of the tank near the Canyon of the Crescent Moon. The scene on the blimp when Sean Connery asks Indy what he wants to talk about and he replies “I can’t think of anything”. The fight after the drinking contest in Marian’s bar. When the guy pulls out the huge sword in the market and Indy just shoots him. These are little pieces that make up the heart of the movie. IJ4 lacked these memorable scenes.

I can’t list all the unbelievable scenes in this film. Sure the first three films had some unbelievable scenes, but at least they were done with humor and class. Let me give you an example. In The Last Crusade, 5 Nazis fighting Indy conveniently stand in single file line on top of a tank speeding through the rough desert terrain, and Indy shoots a single bullet from a stolen Nazi gun which penetrates the torsos of all 5 Nazis - killing them instantly. Unbelievable? Yes. Amazing scene? Yes. Why? Because of the expression of wonder on Indy’s face when he looks at the barrel of the gun he just fired, telling us that the movie is aware of the impossibility it just presented us with.

In IJ4, there is at least one scene involving 10+ Russian goons firing fully-automatic weapons directly at Indy from 10 yards away - missing him every single time. Unbelievable? Yes. Amazing Scene? No. Why? The scene takes itself seriously. There is no joke involved.

The Beratings

Acting - 1 berating.
Just as one or two bad actors cannot ruin a film, one or two good actors cannot make a film. Sorry, Shia and Cate.

Plot - 2 beratings.

Inconsistencies - 2 beratings.
It doesn’t even seem like it belongs in the Indiana Jones series. Besides the same actor portraying Indy and the glimpse of the Arc during the warehouse scene, what else is there to convince me this movie deserves the Indiana Jones prefix?

Unbelievable Events - 2 beratings.
I tried not to bring up this scene, but I just have to seeing as how it’s the most unbelievable scene I’ve
ever seen in the history of Hollywood. There is a scene where Indy jumps in a fridge just before a nuclear explosion (which he later pronounces “nucular” LOL), gets launched a mile into the air and lands without the fridge breaking or even opening, tumbles out of the fridge without a scratch on him, and stands there facing the still-in-progress explosion that should be instantly blinding/burning/cancer-izing him. Anyone involved with creating this scene should be ashamed of themselves. Even you, ILM. Just kidding, I can’t stay mad at you ILM.

Schematics - 1 berating
The graphics were good, but I’m more concerned with the what my ears experienced than what my eyes beheld. Remember the Arc theme? Remember the Grail theme? There was no Skull theme. At least not one that stuck out. The first Indiana Jones films presented some of the greatest film scoring I’ve ever heard. This one failed.

8/10 Berating = Watch it purely for spousal points

0/10 Stand in line for the very first showing
1/10 See it the first weekend
2/10 See it at full price
3/10 See it at the Five-Buck-Club
4/10 See it at the dollar-fifty
5/10 See it OnDemand
6/10 Rent it from Blockbuster
7/10 Watch it on TV
>> 8/10 Watch it purely for spousal points
9/10 Never watch it
10/10 Buy it and publicly destroy it

In summary, I have at least learned a valuable lesson from this experience. Do not put your trust in anything but God. Everything else will eventually disappoint. Sorry, I know that’s a sad note to end on… but is it?

With the release of the new unlocks on The Sixty One, there are a lot of people trying to bump old songs. Why? Because the newest unlock is called Lewis & Clark, and it requires you to bump songs in under-explored genres (classical, blues, country, hip-hop, jazz, r&b, reggae). Seeing as how I only care for about 2 of those genres, I’m struggling to find 50 songs to bump, or even 10 songs to bump 5 times each to equal up to the required 50 bumps needed to achieve level 1 status.

The problem is when a song is a month old it enters “revive” status, which means you are no longer able to bump it without dishing out 1000 points first to revive it. Most of the songs in the aforementioned genres have long since entered the revive graveyard. That leaves us with four possible options:

• 1. Bump songs we really don’t like just to get the level 1 Lewis & Clark unlock
• 2. Just wait until enough good songs come around to bump legitimately
• 3. Spend 1000 points to revive every old song we want to bump
• 4. Figure out a way to bump “revive” songs

Options 1 thru 3 are unacceptable for both the music purist and thesixtyone buff. And I have figured out how to accomplish number 4. While songs that are posted on the front page and on artists’ profiles do not let you bump them w/o reviving them first, the Browse section lets you bump any and all songs. So, if you are unfamiliar with a genre such as classical (one of the genres I do like), I recommend going to Browse and choosing the classical genre in the pull down menu. Then sort by bumps and you will be able to get a taste of the most popular tunes in this category to get you started. Most of the songs will be revive songs, but if you listen to the song and attempt to bump it directly from the Browse screen (without clicking the song and going to the artist profile) you will find success.

Hope this helps all you t61 listeners out there, and if you’re not on t61, get your butt there because it’s the best thing that has happened to me on the Intartubes since Digg. See this post for more information on thesixtyone.

I’m sorry if this is an obvious feature, but I’ve been using the site for 5 months and I never knew about it, so I hope at least someone out there gets some helpful information from this post.

We’ve all been watching for a few years while Mac bashes PC on the (sometimes) funny TV spots. I enjoy them. They’re better than local car dealership commercials, but not quite as funny as the referee training Bud Light commercial.

However, I think PC users are just starting to realize that Apple actually thinks it makes a better product. If that is the case, we either live in a communistic society or everyone is stupid, because it would seem like better products would make up a majority of the market share. That’s beside the point of this post.

I think PC users are starting to get annoyed by the Mac vs PC commercials because I’m beginning to see quite a few hilarious Mac bashing pics/videos in retaliation. If I had to explain it, I would put it this way: PC is the Death Star and Mac is the X-Wing bomber that misses the ventilation shaft. It doesn’t threaten PC, but PC’s gonna blow up all Mac’s planets in retaliation for messing with them (nevermind that the Death Star loses in the end, dangit).

OK, dumb allegory. Anyway, I picked out my top three favorite Mac bashing images for your enjoyment. This is all in fun, as I am not a Mac basher myself. I believe there is a time and place to use a PC just as there is a time and place to use a Mac. That doesn’t mean these aren’t funny.

The Commodore 64 vs Macbook Air

I saw this one on Digg a while back and now it’s pinned up to my cork board at my desk.

Shut Up

This is what we think about that cocky kid constantly bashing PC for having a glitchy operating system and tons of viruses. We all know Macs don’t have as many viruses because the more successful company with the larger market share is obviously going to be the target of a perpetrator whose primary goal is to infect the largest number of computers possible. And if you think Mac’s OS never glitches, think again.

Gay Test

Found this on Bandy Humor’s page of demotivational images, which is NSFW by the way and has a lot of trashy stuff mixed in with the funny stuff. If you want to see a bunch of safe for work demotivational posters, I recommend this page at Despair, Inc. This is one of my favorite images so far. I could never put my finger on what was wrong with this image until it was put into this demotivational template and given the subtext. Come to think of it, it’s entirely true. I’m a man - I want to tinker with stuff. I want to piece together my home theater system, take apart my car, and for goodness sake, you better let me customize my computer. (Note: the image itself is taken directly from an actual Mac advertisement)

You heard it here first!

It’s not even on ESPN.com yet, so I can’t give you any other details other than I have received confirmation that we have won the 2012 Super Bowl bid for sure!

GO COLTS!!!

*Update*

More info here and here