Life lessons from the dojo

( Life lesson #19: Showing up is the hardest part )

( Life lesson #20: Embrace the pain... )

( Life lesson #21: ...but know the exceptions )

And that's it for now. Hopefully I'll be posting these more regularly as I start attending the dojo on a more regular basis.

Grab bag of links

1. The Muppets: Ringing the Bells (1.5-minute video) -- some of you might know that my favourite Christmas carol is "Carol of the Bells." And when you combine my favourite carol and Muppet brilliance, the result can only be awesome.

2. Axis of Awesome: Four-chord song (5-minute video) -- in the tradition of the "Pachabel rant" comes yet another amazing demonstration that all pop songs can be performed using the same four chords.

3. The amazing transforming apartment (4-minute video) -- I know this made the rounds a few weeks ago, but if you haven't seen the video of the 344-square-foot Hong Kong apartment that transforms into 24 rooms, it's pretty cool stuff.

4. Chocri customized chocolate bars -- this, my friends, is a dangerous site. Custom-design your own chocolate bars with whatever you want in them, and then have them send it to you. Very, very dangerous.

5. Damien Walters parkour (3-minute video) -- I'm not usually a huge fan of parkour, but this guy is exceptional. Amazing levels of ability.

6. Who you gonna call? (3-minute video) -- Improv Everywhere brings Ghostbusters to the New York Public Library. Really.

7. Lost in 3 minutes (3-minute video) -- I haven't even watched one episode of Lost, but this guy does a nice job of summing everything up so I don't need to ask, "What the heck is the show about?" anymore. (Special bonus feature: Lost re-enacted by cats in one minute)