Rebecca Black is Better Than a Slushy in the Face!

I couldn't wait till Friday to share this.

I've mentioned before how much I love getting e-mails from teachers with follow-ups to the stories we cover on Classroom Close-up, NJ. Today I got one of those e-mails from music teacher Carl Botti at Frank R. Conwell Middle School #4 in Jersey City. You might remember Carl from my post, I Didn’t Get a Slushy in the Face, but I Did Hear a Great Band, about the story we taped with his students. Here's the note he sent me:

Hi Adam, If you get a minute please check out the band's recent performance on VH1 "Big Morning Buzz". Is it something for your blog? A followup? NJN show helped us get the gig! Thanks Carl Botti Music Teacher MS4 Jersey City

You bet it is! So without further ado, here's the KYBD Band's VH1 debut with their cover of Rebecca Black's "Friday".

How freakin' awesome is that! Really happy for these students and thrilled to hear that our story helped them land this sweet gig. Way to go gang! And just in case you missed it, here's the KYBD Band story from this season:

I Went Two for Three on Flashmob Videos This Weekend

What a crazy weekend! I just happened to be hanging out near the library with my video camera on Friday when this flashmob broke out.

And then it happened again on Saturday when this flash mob broke out at Communiversity!

Another crowd? Another flashmob? How can the same gig  happen to the same guy twice?

Alright, I confess, this wasn't some John-McClane-in-Die-Hard-2-style coincidence. I was actually tipped off about both of these flash mobs by Greta Cuyler, editor of the recently launched Princeton Patch. About a week earlier, I contacted the Patch about possibly contributing to the site in hopes of getting some more opportunities to polish my news gathering skills. These were the first two assignments they sent me on and they were a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to doing more with the Patch.

And just when I thought I had a monopoly on Princeton flash mobs, I find out there was a third flashmob that I wasn't at! Next year I'm getting them all!

This Post Will Get More Interesting as the Day Goes On

Conducting team interviews at a previous M3 Challenge

It's M3 Challenge time again!

Today I'm in NYC to cover the 2011 Moody's Mega Math Challenge Finals. We're going to be taping all the presentations and talking to all the people involved so we can make some more awesome videos about applied mathematics.

New this year, we're broadcasting the entire event live on USTREAM, which you can watch in the window below (I hope). If you're tuning into this post before 1:30PM EST, you'll probably just see a recap of last year's event. Between 1:30PM and 6:00PM you should see the event as it takes place, along with some of my interviews. After that, you should still be able to watch the archived clips.

Video streaming by Ustream

If you don't know anything about the M3 Challenge, check out a few of my other posts on the contest. You might also want to read up on this year's challenge problem so you have at least an inkling of what everyone's talking about.