One of my kids started to play the piano at about 13. By the age of 18, he was playing pieces that were Royal Conservatory grade 10 level, and he was accepted into several universities.

He only had one hour of lessons a week during those 4 years of high school, but usually practiced 2 to 3 hours a day, without any pushing on my part. In some of his lessons he wouldn’t even touch the keyboard, they would just analyze a piece of music or discuss the theory behind it.

In university, the professors sometimes told other students to watch him play. His technique, they said, was not great (he himself admits that playing scales early on would have helped), but his feeling was superb.

I remember staying in a capsule hotel in Osaka, Japan many years ago that had an extraordinary bathing area. Showers like these, and many others. Pools with varying temperatures of water.

Why don’t Mennonites have sex standing up?

Because it could lead to dancing.

(Explanation: some Mennonite sects believe that dancing is inappropriate. Sex is not considered dirty, as long as it is within a marriage.)

The toothbrush mustache became popular because it was the only kind that would fit under the gas mask. I believe that’s why Hitler had one, he was a corporal in WWI (and was temporarily blinded by a gas attack).

Come to Quebec, where electricity is about USD $0.05/kWh. And over 99% of that is renewable (hydroelectric)!

When have the big banks not reported healthy profits? They (with their political flunkeys) have created a system which has been designed to allow them to extract large amounts of money from the Canadian public with little or no risk.

“reasonable and generous”

Well that was their first problem. Trump interprets kindness as weakness. The powerful crush everyone around them and take one they can.

I have taught in Quebec schools this year, the first full year that cell phones were banned. I have not seen a single student using a phone. The teachers at my schools have also been unanimous in saying that there has been a significant improvement in the student attention, as well as communication and activity between students.

Any reason it it spelled “Mithrall” instead of “Mithril”? Is that trademarked or something?

I mean, it seems unlikely they could deny that it is heavily based on Tolkien mythology.

Streaming radio from around the world: Radio Garden

Best language lessons short of full immersion: Language Transfer

I’m not sure what you’re talking about. Saudi Arabia gave the United States military permission to use its air bases for direct attacks on iran.

At the circus, I would assume that they had a contract allowing them to use the music, but it also required them to make their best efforts not to allow recording.

Their best effort, of course, was to ask people not to record, and then they didn’t need to bother doing anything else.

Do you mean aside from hosting American planes, missiles, soldiers, intelligence, and ships, all of which were used to attack Iran?

The whole picture looks bad, like an AI rendering from several years ago.

I don’t remember if German rules are the same as French, but in French you don’t need to include accents when something is written in capital letters.

In my experience, Japanese baking tends to look perfect but fall very short on flavor and texture.

They also generally like things less sweet and less rich (i.e. butter, cream) than westerners and cheese is not even worth the calories.

Doesn’t Quebec’s policy of high-speed internet for everyone include subsidized Starlink for people who don’t have access to fiber? That’s a lot of customers for Musk.

500mg of salt is about 1/10 of a teaspoon, not very much.

I knew a woman who had two young (pre-teen) daughters. For whatever reason, she taught them to use the term “front butt” for their vaginas.

Maybe this kid’s mother had a hysterectomy and explained it as losing the front butt (although I know that’s not correct, it may have been a simple explanation for a small child).

C’mon, weren’t you blown away by the (at the time) novel digitized voice? “He slimed me!”

Of course, escape from Castle Wolfenstein did it even earlier (“was ist los, was ist los” and “ach, mein leben!”).