Word of the Day: Festinate

festinate [FESS-tih-nate] (adjective, verb) [TWITO, page 53]

To move or act at high speed; hasty

"Advise the duke, where you are going, to a most festinate preparation; we are bound to the like. Our posts shall be swift and intelligent betwixt us."
--William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act III, scene 7

My mom has a dusty old upright player piano in her basement. I took a few piano lessons as a kid and used to practice on it. But I never liked playing the piano. I always preferred to insert a piano roll and let the thing play itself. It wasn't electric, though; I had to do some festinate pumping of the foot pedals to make it make it play "Melancholy Baby" or some other tin pan alley hit at the proper speed.