A Day In The Life Of A Peanut Butter Cup

Listen Up!
It never ceases to amaze me how short the half-life is on WMP skins. BASIC6 released last week, and everyone's already done with it and forgotten about it. Well, onto more things. :: I'm gathering more footage for my next music video, and it's nowhere near done, but Standard Deviation is still enjoyable. The problem is finding places that will let me juggle near me. More on that later. :: Well, I've been approached about WMP skinning. I'm not going to reveal any details, but I may have a job as a skinner in an upcoming company for application skins. More details when I have them. :: Diggnation NYC is coming up, and I will be juggling once again at the Turtle Bay, so anyone in that area, come on out on Monday night.

Daily Life:
I hate people that decide to be dicks. Ok. Monday. I'm getting ready to perform on Wednesday (that story is in the Juggle This section), and I'm looking for new performance attire and a place to practice. I need performance attire because my mom believes that I don't look like a good performer showing up in just black pants and an orange sleeveless shirt. Which is EXACTLY what Vova Galchenko performs in, blkack pants and a red sleeveless shirt. But that's besides the point. So I've decided to go with an orange t-shirt / black vest combo, to avoid from being hacky, or too circusy. So I grab my stuff, toss my 5 rings on my head (for practicing and testing the practical performance of the clothes), and head over to the Woodbridge Mall.

My first stop was Dick's Sporting Goods. Perhaps one of my favorite stores, simply because they have juggling worthy equipment, and have never bothered me before about juggling baseballs and rackets, balancing golf clubs, or spinning basketballs. I mean, why would they? They're a sporting goods store, a place where kids are trying out all the baseball bats, golf clubs, and other more dangerous things, and besides, they have a frickin' rock climbing wall that you can pay and climb in the mqain lobby of the place. That and the roof is absolutely beautiful for spotting props and it's about 50 feet high in the middle of the store. But regardless, I'm in there looking for blank shirts. Just my luck, they're having a clearance sale coupled with a 70% off sale on practically all t-shirts. I find my orange shirt, and I get it for only about 5 bucks. I am happy. After trying out some juggling in there, and buying the blank shirt, I leave into the mall section happy.

I'm now looking for a vest, I figure JC Penny's has some, as they have a formal wear section right inside the store. Figures that they actually have about 200 over coats and 400 pants, and 3 vests. So I go back into the mall and look for a formal wear store, the first one I enter is having a clearance sale, but their vests are only up to xl in the store. I run to the next one, and they have a few xxl vests. One plain black one, a purple front one (like I'm gonna wear THAT), and a red front one. I decide after trying it on and juggling in it in the store to get the black one, and it's all good. $25 for the vest, which came with bowtie, tie, and hankerchief. Eh.

So now I've got everything I need, and I've got some spare time left today, and I don't have anything planned for later, so I run to the lobby right at the Mall entrance to Dick's. This foyer has about a 40-50 foot ceiling, and is about 25' x 25', so there's plenty of room for me to juggle and even if I make a wild throw, it's not going to go anywhere near hitting anyone. I decide to try a new trick, one that I'll be hellbent on getting for a while. 744 with 5 rings. Yeah, after about all of 2 minutes, security comes over and tells me I can't do that on mall property. Ok, fine, I can see their fears about me doing it in the foyer, and they didn't force me out or anything. So I go into Dick's and continue doing it on the other side of the store where noone can see from the mall entrance. After about 20 minutes of trying 744 with rings in the middle of the store, the manager comes up and asks me to not do that in the middle of the store. Looking back, I was right in the exact center of the store, on a path about 3 feet wide right in the middle of the clearance section, and I think he was just asking me to not block people's paths in the store. I thought he was kicking me out too, so I left and got into my truck.

Now, I haven't been to the Woodbridge Community Center ever since they kicked me out for recording Tossik inside of it, mostly as protest but regardless. I decided to stop in and continue my attempts at 744, as I was getting close inside of Dick's, and the center was literally just instead of turning right at an intersection to get onto the route home, just go straight instead and you're in the parking lot. I parked, walked in, and went to the basketball courts. Not 1 minute passed before the same guy who kicked me out for RECORDING VIDEO, came in and kicked me out for NOT HAVING A MEMBERSHIP OR WRISTBAND. Turns out that to do anything inside of a COMMUNITY CENTER, you need to pay at least 5 dollars, and after that he said he probably wouldn't let me juggle. That just pissed me off. I'm never going back there again. Prepare yourself for a rant.

This community center, was built from tax dollars, and they have a United Skates, a food court, numerous vending machines, and programs there all for making money. It was built as a place where anyone can come in and do what they wanted, especially just hanging out, without getting kicked out for anything other than starting a fight or smoking. When the hell did they decide to change this and become monetary bastards? And even more than that, there was no signs on the door or anything, they just came in on me from out of nowhere. But like I said, I was walking out, not cussing or anything, but the guys in the basketball courts where I was doing my stuff were booing the guy who kicked me out, and I was saying "It's OK, I'll just go to the gymnasium at my college."

Juggle This:
So I had my performance today, and that's why this blog post is a day late. So that I could talk about it. It was at the Temple Shalom Nursery School, and it's about a half hour away off the Parkway. I haven't ever traveled the parkway past the first exit, and I forgot that we were out of loose change in the truck, so after the first toll, 70 cents, I then ran out of change, and at the 25 cent one to exit, I literally put my truck in park, got out, picked up a quarter from the ground, tossed it in the bucket and proceeded onwards. But I made it there with no problems. I'm getting better at finding places and reading directions. But besides the point.

I get to the place, and realize that I've got like 40 pounds worth of equipment to bring in with a giant prop box. Fun times. I get in though, setup, and have some practice time before the show starts. SO I try, 744 with rings. didn't get it, and I realized I was starting to make my arms tired before the show started, so I stopped and relaxed for a few minutes. Then the show begins. I start with my 5 ball WJF routine, and they're wowed with each trick. Perfect. I go down in the numbers, and finish my solo ball routine, and then I make a mistake, I bring up a volunteer 4 minutes into the show. I realize now that once you ask for a volunteer, you can't do any solo tricks for the rest of the show until the finale. Something I'll keep in mind for my next 3 performances. But either way, I went through all my stuff, it worked, it lasted for about an hour and I was tired and sore afterwards. The surprising thing is that I was losing my voice afterwards too, which I thought was strange, but not really, I was talking and shouting the entire time, so it was justified.

After the performance ended, I chatted with the director for a while, and she thought it was great. I thought it was an ok show, but would have been a lot better if I hadn't brought up volunteers so early. Regardless, I got my check, got permission to post the video on youtube, which I will do sometime later this week, and left for home. Another successful performance. The best thing about juggling as a hobby, it pays for itself.

A Day In The Life Of A Peanut Butter Cup ~ Reeses2150