thoughts and ramblings of David Wang

I share a web tip on my podcast every week. For #LOLshow Episode 22, the featured tip is Know Your Meme, the Internet Meme Database.

A funny thing happened while we were recording Episode 20. After we had recorded the show, we noticed that the term ‘Zangief’ was trending on Twitter. We went, huh?, not knowing why the term was trending.

Later, I realized the reason the term was trending was because of a video of a schoolkid putting the smackdown on a bully at school. Because of his awesome Street Fighter style body slam on the bully, the kid was nicknamed ‘Zangief kid’ and the video went viral. You can see the video and the entire back story on the Zangief kid meme on its database entry on the Know Your Meme website.

I’m standing as I’m typing this. I’m standing because I’ve got a new desk–a standing desk.

Why Use a Standing Desk?

One of the first questions I get when I tell people I’m now standing while working is why?

The biggest motivation for me was because I didn’t want to sit on my ass the whole day. I feel that sitting for long periods has been contributing to my growing waistline and makes my work day very sedentary.

Standing on the other hand, takes a significant physical effort. At the end of my first week using the desk, my calves are sore, and I can feel my hamstrings and glutes at work. I can’t slouch while standing so my shoulders and back muscles are activated as well.

Building My DIY IKEA Standing Desk

I’ve never really stood up while working, so I wasn’t sure if I could really make the switch. So ideally my desk had to revert back to a sitting desk if standing and working didn’t work for me. One solution was to get an ergo desk–there’s Geekdesk in North America and I saw a pretty good one in The Curve in Mutiara Damansara–but they were way beyond my budget.