A Day In The Life Of A Peanut Butter Cup

Listen Up!
My next couple juggling videos are in the works, including video #13, and one I just started working on, my promo video for non-jugglers. Also, The Stupid Tricks video is almost done. I'm betting that I'll have it done before the end of February. And speaking of videos, it was recently the one year anniversary of my releasing Tossik. Just a little side note. :: Yes, I couldn't help it, actually out of boredom it was, I've begun posting onto Mobius-X again. Not really much to post ABOUT there, but regardless. I don't think I'll be doing any coding work over there though, because I'm already too deep with my own personal projects. :: JoJ30. I keep hitting myself in the head with my fist for not working on it. I'll make everyone that happens to still care a deal. I have the base recorded, and I have to do just the editing, which is the hard part. But here's the deal. If I don't release it by the end of this month (4 days) I'm going to leave it behind and not do it. Then I'll be doing one hopefully t the next convention I go to. :: I beat Elite Beat Agents last week and have been trying to get video of the replay, but doesn't seem to be working. Expect that vido on my youtube when I can actually get it.

-- Music Release --
A bit of a weird one this week. A geek track mixed with another even geekier track. Daft Punk - Technologic vs Dr. Reanimator - Move Your Dead Bones. Yes. I. Went. There. Call me a nerd for listening to that track, but I've always thought that it needed something to juice it up a little, because it was always so open sounding, with lots of time between the lyrics. So what better than to add a song that is nothing BUT lyrics. This tracks a bit of a throwaway while I'm waiting to finish the MXPX track that I've been working so hard on. Still good nonetheless, I think. And if you agree, chances are you're a dork, LIKE ME! Daft Punk vs Dr. ReAnimator - Move Your Tech.

And you know what, as a bonus I'll throw in my very FIRST record-worthy mash. This one I did on my friend's laptop at Middlesex County College, and I just recorded it. I have no idea what the first track is, but it said it was something by Ramstein, and I crushed it together with Daft Punk - Around The World. It kinda works, but I have no idea. Ramstein vs Daft Punk - Techno Gud.

Daily Life:
Well, I'm willing to assume that noone reading this can guess what was happening at Spencers on Thursday. It was inventory day. Yes, the day when my boss's boss's boss comes in and we literally count every item in the store, twice. Luckily I had the closing shift, so I only had to count everything once (to double-check everyone else's numbers, and I heard that the manager had basically been there since 5:00 AM to start the day off), but it was still a fun day. So I come in and have absolutely no idea what to do, fortunately, the higher ups that were there understood my position and told me exactly what to do before kicking me into it. I got assigned to count the back-left corner of the store and the back wall. That's not such a bad section considering how there are not many deep shelves and everything was pretty much up front and easy to count. At least everything on the left wall was. The back wall was covered almost entirely by the boxes we'd gotten in earlier in the day. I had to use a flashlight to see behind them and count everything, and it was a bit of a hassle when I kept knocking items off the shelves behind me. The one big problem with the store is that there's only about 2 feet between displays, so it was even more fun when there were boxes taking up 1 and a half of those 2 feet.

Regardless, the day went by really quick and without a hitch during inventory. This was partly because literally EVERY employee of the store was working at the time, but regardless. I went a full 5 hours before I even felt tired, and then I took my break and went to have a cheese-steak at Charley's. So coming back, I still didn't feel at all tired, and I only had about 3 hours to go, and all the higher ups had left, inventory was finished, and it suddenly turned into just another day. Not really much else happened in the week, so yeah.

Juggle This:
I REALLY need to practice rings more, especially if I still want to compete n ring intermediates at WJF5. I seem to be doing a lot better with balls however, and have begun experimenting with my 5 ball siteswaps and combining other tricks. Just today I managed to do a 744 from a 5 ball half shower, and back into the 5 ball half. I've also pretty much perfected a similar move where I do a 645 in the middle of a half shower. I'm also getting much better runs of my 4 ball siteswaps, and recently got 5 rounds of 7531 to a qualify. If this keeps up I might be more likely to go into intermediate balls instead of rings, but who knows what'll happen in the next 10 months.

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

Listen Up!
THE GIANTS ARE IN THE SUPERBOWL! I WENT TO THE NEW YORK JUGGLING CLUB! SUNLIGHT NONE IS GETTING BIG HITS! I AM HAPPY!!!!!

Ok, so maybe not that happy, but Go Giants, hell yes. :: So music mashing is doing great, I'm starting to understand the idea of the multiple layered recording. Where you'd record the initial mash of just the instrumental layers or whatever, then record a mashup of THAT and whatever big lyrical hit points you want, then record a mash between THAT and something else, etc. The track that I'm really using this really well in sould be out in 2 weeks. :: Windows Media Player is cold. Haven't done anything for a while, but still people are coming to me for help with whatever they need. I'm not even up on the latest code changes in WMP11, but still they come. That's how you know you've left a mark in a community, when people who have problems come to YOU for help, even after you've "stopped" (not really) doing it. :: I've decided to redo my personal website, and the first step was redoing the front splash page. Looks a hell of a lot nicer when you go to http://reeses2150.com now doesn't it? More to come on that. :: Juggling videos. I have one recorded, edited and ready to go when I feel like it's been long enough since Sunlight None. I also have The Stupid Tricks Video, which is ALMOST ready to go, but I just need a little more footage to better it up. As always, I've got another idea for one that I haven't started yet, but that should be cool when I do it. :: College is about to start up again. Goddamnit. AT least this semester again though, I'm getting help with gas money. I'm driving Mark S. in Mondays and Wednesdays and I'm getting 7 bucks a week for the gas. Heya!

Oh, and one more thing. GO GIANTS!

-- Music Release --
Satisfaction To Eternity. This is actually the first mashup I ever made and thought good enough to record. I did this one back at Middlesex County College on Gordan's laptop, and I'm amazed when I think about how I haven't released it yet. Fox Amoore is an incredible pianist, and I've used his piece "Dance To Eternity" before as part of my competing in the World Juggling Federation. But that's enough about that, it's an incredible track on it's own, and I figured it'd sound even more awesome switching between another song and it. The other song is just one of the sample songs you receive when you get a copy of Virtual DJ. DJ N'Erick - Satisfaction. It's an ok track, but it's really great for mixing with other tracks. So here it is, an all instrumental track, Fox Amoore vs DJ N'Erick - Satisfaction To Eternity

Daily Life:
So before I talk about my trip to NYC this past Thursday, I need to talk about some things from work. At least one strange, bad, or noteworthy thing happened at Spencers the last 3 days I worked. So the first was something that happened on Saturday that I forgot to mention in my last post. I was working the closing shift, which is the usual now, and the entire shift was pretty much uneventful. Just like any other day, stopping shoplifters, helping confused customers, and cleaning the store. Then comes closing time, and I'm sent to guard the door for a while. Every night at closing, at 9:30 or whatever our closing time is, we'd close the front doors, but not lock them, and for 5 minutes, one of us will stand there to keep people from coming in and let the people out. We've got me, Lora, and Megan working, so it's just the three of us. There's about 4 customers left when I'm closing the doors, and I close the doors and everything is normal. 5 minutes later, I start cleaning the shelves and putting away all the products, then I realize that there's still a group of two left in the store. Lora and Megan notice them too, and we decide that they look like they're almost done and let them finish as we start cleaning up. The problem is, that they weren't done, and they basically kept looking through the shelves for about 10 minutes while we were coming in and cleaning after them. They finally decide their done just as we're about to walk them out, and they head to the register, so Lora takes care of them as we continue cleaning. Note, Lora is supposed to count the register every night to make sure everything adds up, and she can't do that until the last customer is out of the store. The customers suddenly start looking back at stuff they put back and at the stuff on the front of the register, and it basically takes them ANOTHER ten minutes to finally pay and leave. So we only can NOW start to really do the things we're supposed to do, and it's 9:50. We're only supposed to be there until around 10:00, but because of them we all punched out around 10:20. So that sucked.

So skip ahead to Friday, and we're starting to prepare for Inventory next week. Where we count up ALL the items in the store and clean EVERYTHING. It's gonna be fun, but on Friday we decided to get a head start on it, so everyone was cleaning, and I got the wonderful job of cleaning the floor underneath all the shelves. This is fun, because I have to unpile all the stuff from the bottom shelf, remove the bottom shelf, then with my handy-fuckin-dandy dustpan and brush sweep up all the crap, dust, and items that fell underneath since the last time they did this (about 6 months ago). Then I have to reassemble the lower shelf and put everything back. All this has to be done, while on either my knees, stomach (if my knees hurt too much that I don't care how bad I look sprawled out on the floor), or if I'm in the corner, in the fetal position laying on my side. That sucked. Plus I was sore and tired afterwards for basically the entire night. But hey, now it's done for the next 6 months.


Saturday was much easier, it was a normal day, except for one thing that happened right in front of me. Now, we don't have any policies about kids or parents bringing toddlers/babies in to shop. Never have, never will. It's their decision and their responsibility for what the kids see and hear. So it wasn't weird when a guy brought his two year old daughter in with him, even when he let her roam free inside. That's all perfectly normal. What wasn't was when the kid, for no apparent reason, decided that the middle of the store would be a great place to fall flat on her face. I was standing on the side of the store keeping an eye on a group of kids that looked like they might shoplift something, and out of the corner of my eye, I see her suddenly move forward and put her hands up. I turn my head to see her face-plant into the stiff carpet (luckily she didn't fall on the tile, but the carpet's not exactly that much better than the tile anyway). Now, even at 2, most kids know when you fall forward, you put your hands out in front of you to stop you from smacking the ground with your head. Not this little ball of intelligence. Arms straight out above her head, and in fact, they hit after the rest of her body did. I haven't heard a thud like that in years. Sounded like dropping a bowling ball onto the floor of your house from above your head. Fortunately, her father was right there to swoop her up and get her to the medical place in the mall, but that was slightly disturbing.

Juggle This:
So I took a trip to New York on Thursday, I was originally going to go to the Diggnation meetup, but it got canceled the day before, and I decided that instead, I'd head over to the Carmine Street juggling club. But before I went there, I got to go to the Dube store again. But let me start right from the beginning.

I had 2 choices for buses. Either catch the 2:20 or the 4:00. There was no others in between, and the 2:20 was a little early for me, but the 4:00 seemed like it was pushing it for time. Well, I woke up at around 1:30, so the 2:20 looked good, until I had breakfast, caught up on posts and everything, and watched some TV. I figured as I was waiting, "Hey, Dube is an awesome place, but the jugglers club doesn't meet until 7:30, and if I get in NYC at 3:00 or so, I'm not spending 3 hours in the Dube store." So I remembered that for all the previous Diggntion meets how I'd take the 4:00 bus to get in by 6:00, and I thought it'd work. Well, that happened to be a bad traffic day at the Lincoln Tunnel, and I got into the Port Authority bus terminal at around 5:40. I called Dube and told them I was coming in and that I may come in REALLY close to closing. They said they'd wait up. I got through the bus terminal, and got the one cabbie in New York that didn't know where he was going. He actually asked me what I thought would be the fastest way to get downtown. I got to Dube at 5:58, and managed to get the stuff I came for, and head out for some pizza. I spent about 10 minutes in Dube, and didn't get any pictures or anything, but I do have now 4 more rings. 1 black airflite ring, 2 more yellow airflite rings, and one large spinning ring (babache style), and I also picked up a few more balls while I was there because as I was looking at them at the register, I realized they were the ones I liked and needed more of so I could practice 7 better. I should have got one different colored for counting, but whatever.

So I left Dube, snapping a pic of the lobby's floor map to prove I was there, and caught a Cab to head over to the Gym for the Carmine Street Irregulars. I still had an hour before it was going to start, and it was starting to snow outside, so I ran into the pizzeria across the street and grabbed a few slices for dinner and energy for the club. I never forget how great it is to have authentic New York Pizza. God that stuff is good. So I finish that and then go apply for membership with the gym (since you can't just go in and pay a one time, you need to sign up for the yearly, which is 75 bucks. Sucks, but it's worth it to hang out with Sky, Paris (maybe), Cindy M, and a bunch of other jugglers ranging from first weeker's to jugglers who are better than me by leaps and bounds, whenever I have enough money to go. Unfortunately, I forgot that MADfest was going on, so Sky wasn't going to be there, but hey, there was still plenty of a turnout to make it worthwhile. As for what I actually did when I was there, oh man. I qualified 6 rings again twice, tried flashing 7 a few times before realizing I'm nowhere near ready for THAT yet, got an awesome 5 ball string on camera (because of the comments about Sunlight None not having enough combo's in it), and inspired someone to do more box juggling. Sweet. No combat, but hey, for less than a sixth the price of any other convention I've went to, it was pretty damned good.

So I spent the 3 hours there, didn't take as many pics as I wanted to, and didn't even get any pics of myself at the actual club outside of video footage, but hey whatever. I got back into a cab, took the next bus back to Jersey, and now here I am blogging about it. Kewl.

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

Listen Up!
Well, my English 2 class is over, and I'm actually feeling good about having taken the two week course. My professor was good, the projects were few and short between, plus I got a few papers about juggling that I may be able to publish somewhere, even if it is just the local newspaper, they're that good I think. :: Ok, JoJ 30, yes I know. I'm planning on recording it tomorrow, now that I actually have the time to. So that should be up by the end of the week. :: Work is doing great, it doesn't seem like my job is in any kind of jeopardy, and they aren't given any signs that they'll be cutting down on employees. So Yay me! :: I updated my website a bit. I redid my front page completely and updated all the things on my home page. We'll see if I can keep up with the updates or not. I REALLY need to find an easier way to update it. :: Sunlight None released, and it's doing pretty good. It's already gotten about as many views as Tri BX 2, and even more compliments. I've already got another random music video done and ready to be uploaded once people stop watching Sunlight None.

MUSIC RELEASE!
Man, I guess this'll be a weekly thing for a while after all. After this, I've still got 2 that are done and ready for me to put out, and I've got another one I'm working on right now. Good times.
Aside from that though, this new one I got the idea for when I was wondering what I wanted to listen to in my truck one day, seeing as how I'd left my CDRW in my computer, which I use to re-burn what music I'm currently liking that week. So I was turning through my CD sleeve attached to the sun-blocker thing, and I found my Zebrahead CD. I hadn't listened to it for a while, so I threw it in and one of the first tracks on it was E-Generation. That's one of my favorite songs by Zebrahead, period, but as I was listening to it again (this is coming off of a binge of really complex songs like ones by The Flashbulb), I kept thinking about how simple the underlaying beat was. So I then got the idea to mix it when i got back home, and when I mixed it with The Flashbulb, it just sounded so perfect. I recorded it, and now it's here for you to rock out to. The Flashbulb - Kirlian Shores vs Zebrahead - E-Generation
Zebrahead vs The Flashbulb - Kirlian Generation

Daily Life:
Life is good. I finished my winter course, and immediately had 2 days of work afterwards. That's ok though. I really like working at Spencer's. It's much less of a contrlled environment, I'm not stuck in the same place doing EXACTLY the same thing for hours on end, and the managers will rely on me for stuff like inventory and other jobs. Granted, they did that last bit at Shoprite, but hey, who am I to complain, at least here I'm not under any time constraints and feeling like I need to HURRY UP and get this job done. That doesn't mean that I sit down and chat with the customers during inventory day, but I get to work at my own pace (which is already pretty fast) and not have anyone make up a to-do list for me as soon as I' done. At Spencer's, we all know what has to be done every day, it doesn't change from day to day, plus there's less stuff to do. For example, we don't have dozens of spray bottles that need to be refilled constantly, we don't have a giant back storage room full of stuff that we need to put out (90% of the stuff we get in, we immediately put on the shelves), and we don't need to run shopping carts full of returns around the store constantly. I'm not saying that I didn't like doing all that stuff when I was at Shoprite, but it feels nice to not have to do all that stuff.

But I haven't actually said anything interesting yet, have I? Ok, I think it's been long enough that I can find SOMETHING to complain about. The commute. Oh, man does it suck. First off, I need to take Woodbridge Avenue from Sewaren up to Menlo Park, because god knows Route 1 is a giant parking lot no matter where you enter it, and luckily there's a nice little connecting road between Woodbridge Ave directly to Menlo Mall, the only problem I have with it is that it's a 25mph road with speed bumps, for no apparent reason. So that's a slight annoyance. Otherwise, it's a 20 minute commute, which kinda sucks, but it could be worse. Not much else to complain about other than how cramped the store can get, but that's it.

Juggle This:
I HATE THE 4 BALL MESS! I absolutely hate it. All I have to say about that.
As for better juggling news, I'm still waiting for any potential places where I can perform, but then again there isn't really much going on in the winter months.

As for what I've actually DONE recently, well, I've been practicing my 4 ball shower "synchross" (where in the middle of the shower, you catch one of the high throws and throw the two balls from your hands in synch, crossing over the top of the patter, then throw the other 2 in the normal shower pattern before catching the synch throws and going back into the shower.) and can now do it on command under an 8 foot roof. So that's a good thing. I'm still working on rings in the hopes of competing in intermediates at WJF5, but it looks grim, seeing as how I'm not practicing them anywhere near as much as I should. When I DO practice them, however, I'm doing better than ever before, so who knows at this point.

I'm also thinking about starting a competition on youtube. The 5 ball low collision competition. It'd be like the 5 club explosion recovery idea from WJF4, only it's with 5 balls, it has to be done under an 8 foot (or similar) roof, and would be voted on by the viewers. You can make as many attempts as you want, spend 10 minutes or three hours trying to get the most insane collision and recovery as you can, and post it to youtube.

I'm heading to the NYC Juggling club on Thursday. I finally have the chance to and hopefully I'll see a few people I know there. We'll see what happens, but if you're going to go to NYC juggling club this week, you'll see me there. I hope Sky ends up there this week, and that I can get a few pics as well. So I'll give my trip report next week.

And of course, all this week's pictures are from Sunlight None.
A Day In The Life Of A Peanut Butter Cup ~ Reeses2150

Listen Up!
Yup. 2008 time, woo! Maybe. Ok. :: So in youtube news, I've got my next big juggling video releasing on the 10th,m but you already knew that. Sunlight None. What you DON'T know is that I'm going to release a new video before then. January Update, in the same style as last years December Update, and it will have a preview for Sunlight None, as well as a lot of other goodies in there. That should be out either later today or tomorrow. :: My winter class is fun. I've got a project due again today, and then we're starting the final project stuff now, so I'm thankful that I've already finished pretty much every project on my list besides JoJ 30. Speaking of. :: Yes, I know JoJ30 is still not started. I really want to do it, but I really don't have the ability right now. When I DO make it though, I've decided the least I could do for everyone because of the wait is to make it a video episode with clips fro everything I'll cover from 2007. So hopefully that'll come out before the MONTH is over...

ANOTHER MUSIC RELEASE!
Good times is what I say. This new one, which I actually made 2 weeks ago, was the first mashup I really spent a hardcore amount of time editing, re-editing, and then re-recording and everything. Because as I kept listening to it, I kept thinking I needed to do more to it, and I had more ideas. Eventually it all came together though, and I've got another mashup to add to my collection. Oh, and I've got at least 2 more good ones lined up to release after this one, so who knows what will happen with them, or if I'll be releasing my less good mashes, but for now, this is a mashup of Royksopp - Poor Leno and Scatman John - Scatman. I call it, Roykscat - Poor Scatman. Enjoy.

Daily Life:
I believe I said last week that I would describe how the daily quota works at Spencers, which I might mention hasn't laid me off yet, a very good sign! So seeing as how Spencers doesn't exactly sell 200 items a minute like Shoprite, every sale counts, and money is very controlled. Every day, in order to turn a profit for Spencers co, we need to pass a certain dollar amount in sales. I don't know, nor would I reveal what that dollar amount is, but I do know that when we pass it, good things happen for everyone. Prices may drop, raises may happen, and the boss gets in a good mood. All. Good. Things.

As for what actually happened of interest this week, um. I really can't think of anything of interest. Just another week. At least that's how it feels today. I know it's only taking you a few seconds to read this, but I just sat here for ten minutes trying to think of something awesome of horrible that happened this week, and I can't think of a damn thing. Perhaps next week...

Juggle This:
Well, what to report on. I think I've gotten a hell of a big confidence boost in my subconscious mind after qualifying seven balls. Which if you didn't hear, check out the video right next to my daily life section. I qualified 7 balls on the 2nd, and getting that milestone under my belt made me think and feel like I could do anything. So after taking the 3rd off to rest, I tried some 5 ball stuff on the 4th, and I easily made 2 rounds of 744 to a qualify after only about 6 tries. I was shocked. I've done it a few times since then, and then yesterday I got the thought to try running another 5 ball siteswap I knew I could do for at least one round. Seeing as how I got this idea while I was at home, I decided that 66661 and my eight foot roof would be a good thing to try, and I got 2 rounds to a qualify on camera on the 4th attempt. I feel so good about this now, and my normal 5 ball cascade has never felt easier. I can't wait to see what I'll do by next week.

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