Monday, February 25, 2008

 

The Approaching Storm

Listen Up!
Let me put this simply. I finished all 3 major juggling video projects I was working on. Video #13 for my [Juggling] series is done, and I'm calling it "Cold Physics". I'll release that on the 2nd of March. So until then, the preview image is here for you to enjoy, I guess. Down at the Juggle This section. :: I also finished editing together the long working "Stupid Tricks Video". I used footage going all the way back to 2006 for this video, and it actually works really nicely. It's not what I originally had in mind, but it's interesting enough. I don't have an idea for releasing it yet, but sometime after Cold Physics for sure. :: I made my ass a promo video with footage from a bunch of my performances. It's pretty much done, but I want to tweak it to make it more non-juggler friendly. But yeah, I MIGHT release it on youtube, but I'll probably be just updating the "Hire Me" section of my website with it. We'll see what happens, but the main editing is done. :: Also, just a quick note, "Juggle This" is coming upo soon in NYC, and I'll be going. YAY! I just need to figure out what I'll be doing for sleep, and I'll discuss it more in the Juggle This section. Fitting, eh? :: College sucks, but what else is new. I'm doing ok with keeping up with grades and stuff, it's just that the early physics class is killing me like nothing else.

-- Music Release --
Ok, I really wanted to use the Ceasars for something, and the problem was that I couldn't find an open space in the lyrics of Jerk It Out that I could put anything into, and having it as the main song was just overpowering everything else. So I decided to just use the underlaying beat from Jerk It Out as a secondary part to Hoobastank's Without A Fight, another track I've been wanting to mix. The two didn't seem to fit at first, and I was having trouble getting the right levels to block out the lyrics from Jerk it Out. That damned song is just one giant level, it's damn near impossible to pull out or block just the lyrics or just the instruments from it, and it's just such a powerful song it just pushes everything else away. This was most definitely an interesting mash to make, but I figured out the levels for the most part and got it sounding good.
Hoobastank vs The Ceasars - Without A Jerking Out

Daily Life:
I completely forgot to mention last week. That the DIGGNATION NYC MEETUP HAPPENED! And there's another one coming up in exactly one week, but I should really talk about the last one, shouldn't I?

It's a fairly straightforward meetup. A group of entrepreneurs, multimedia people, and general IT guys, and geeks who are all fans of Diggnation come into a bar in NYC, watch an episode and hang. I haven't missed one since the second meetup happened, and I plan on continuing that tradition. SO basically, I tried to persuade the members of the Computer Enthusiast club at MCC to come to NY and join. Gordon was the most interested guy, and he said he'd definitely go. So I catch an early bus because I saw the weather was going to be hell, and I literally spent about 2 hours on the bus, not only waiting for the Lincoln Tunnel, but right after it when they decided to close the main entrance ramp to the Port Authority Bus terminal from the tunnel, thus forcing all the buses to go around the block, past that Javits center, and finally into the station. In the night and with the snow, I arrived at the terminal around 6:00, after leaving the house at 4.

On the way there, somewhere on the NJ turnpike, I decided to call Gordon to make sure he was going, because dealing with people, I've learned that if you suggest something, and the person agrees, unless the action is taken immediately, they will most of the time not bother with it. So I called him up, and made sure he went, and if it wasn't for that, I'd have been the only guy there from MCC. That being said, back to chronological order. So I get to Port Authority, finally. The meetup starts at 7:30, and it's at a bar down past Greenwich Village. Now, the snow was coming down a good amount, but it wasn't that bad at all for the road conditions. I was especially comfy because I'd just gotten the day before a nice down vest from JC Penny which was regularly $60, but I got for $4. So I was perfectly fine with waiting, especially waiting for a cab outside of Port Authority, I've learned that a lot of cabs don't come down that way. HOWEVER, every empty cab coming down the street skipped right past dispatch, for about an hour. I was 5th in line and it literally took 50 minutes before I got into a cab, and I counted at least 70 empty cabs passing by Port Authority and just not stopping at all. A few even dropped someone off at PA, but didn't pick anyone up. Gotta love NY.

So either way, I finally get a cab, get there about 5 minutes late, but still before a lot of other people, and Gordon shows up about a quarter of the way through the show 20 minutes later. So we introduced everyone around, he ordered some drinks, and I just juggled and discussed whatever I knew about, including the Yahoo/Microsoft offer, the HD DVD deal, and other big things at the time. It was great. The only thing is that the Turtle Bay for some reason no longer hosts our meetings, so we got a tiny little bar, and there was no lounge, no tables, no nothing. But hey, I'm not complaining, at least we're finally holding meetings again. I just ope I can convince more people to come to the meetings from CEC this week.

I also completely forgot to mention that I downloaded onto my Wii, The original Kirby's Adventure for the Nes. No there's a trip down memory fuckin lane for you.

As for things that happened this week, I finally saw Live Free or Die Hard at CEC's movie night last week, cool movie. Most of the hacking stuff was basically impossible, but hey, it's an action movie, not "Hackers" or anything.

Another random thing is the night before CEC last week, I went in to Spencers to get next week's schedule, and on my way out I stopped at Radio Shack. No idea why, I didn't really need anything, and I found something that I've wanted since I started doing photography around 2003, a full fledged Unipod. I picked it up, it looked good, and I said "If this is less than 20, I'll get it." It cost me ten bucks. Frickin Sweet!

Juggle This:
So Juggle This is coming up, the convention for NYC, and if all goes well, I'll be going for all 3 days. The problem I have to figure out is the whole "Sleep" thing. Here's the deal, I always take mass transit (usually the bus) into NYC, and that only runs until midnight. Yes, I could go on a train but that defeats the purpose, because it would take even longer to get back to my house from the train station that I just don't care to bother. Renting a hotel room in NYC is pretty much a waste of money, and the whole reason I'm fretting is because after every convention I've been to, I've learned that open juggling is SUPPOSED to end at either 11PM or midnight, but it never does unless the building gets closed up, and in that case everyone just juggles at the nearest open place with a high enough roof, or outside. So basically my deal is that I CAN if I wanted to, jump out every night early at around 11:00 or so, catch the bus and basically for three days spend 15 dollars for the bus round trip plus 20 or 30 for the cab round trip. I just don't have that kind of money to spend, plus there's no reason to do that. So my big thing is I have to find out where I'll be crashing with, and I really have to put a message on JuggleNYC.com for that shouldn't I? Eh, I'll get around to it. But either way, this'll be my first time at Juggle This, so I'm not sure who'll be there and how it's going to be, but I expect it'll be awesome.

So in other news, like I said up top, my next video is finished and I'll be releasing it with next week's post. It's pretty awesome in terms of what tricks I've managed to get into it, and the editing ain't half bad either, but I'll leave that for you to say. Because if I've learned one thing, it's that my tastes do not reflect the majority. I thought my December and January update videos would get hundreds of views, and that "The Haircut" would get maybe 10 views. In actuality the update videos are still under 100 views a piece, and "The Haircut" is my most viewed video on youtube...

Getting a lot better and more comfy with all my 5 ball stuff. I can now get at least 2 rounds, usually 3 of 744 on command, I can double qualify 6x4 almost every time now, and I seem to have suddenly recovered the ability to do 360's after not being able to do them for months. Not sure what it is, but don't question the good things that happen, that's what I've learned.

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

Monday, February 18, 2008

 

Headaches and Nutshots

Listen Up!
So the next video for my [Juggling] series is still being worked on, I got some good ring footage now, including 4up 180's and a bunch of 4 ring tricks, and a qualify of a 5 ring full reverse. Other than that though, I'm still thinking of other footage to put in. :: Work sucks, I've been getting less than 10 hours a week for the past 3 weeks, and I'm getting a little annoyed about that. My parents are still pushing me to get a second job at Staples, even though I've already sent my resume and application. I think they forget the time in summer 06 when I HAD 2 jobs, and did NOT have any classes, and I was dead at the end of every day. Barely enough energy left over to think about juggling or anything else. :: School, well let's just say it's interesting. I setup my classes this semester around the entire idea that I would have the best professor at MCC (professor Handler) teaching my Physics 2 class. I specifically took a 10:00 class so that I could have him and be completely comfortable in the class. All of the sudden, last week. He drops out and can't teach the class for the rest of the semester thanks to medical reasons, and I'm stuck with a professor that I don't want, teaching a class at a time of the day that has caused me problems since Junior year of high school, at a point in the semester where I can't drop out of the class and get any better than a 50% refund on my tuition and no replacement classes. MCC. Good Times.

-- Music Release --
This is an interesting one which appeared out of absolutely nowhere. Since I started making mashes I wanted to do something with Maldroid as one of the 2 songs, but the problem was that their songs are all really short, and the best one to use (He Said, She Said) was barely 2 minutes. The only one long enough was "You Can Have It All", and that one I just don't think would sound good combined. Now, Maldroid is a bit notorious with their new releases, they continue to make remixes and redo's of the songs from their first album (which was only 5 songs), and nothing else. So I rarely check back. Then one day I check back and find they've done a giant 5 minute long remix of "He Said, She Said" that was almost all instruments, and was perfect for mashing. I downloaded it, and promptly forgot it existed for a few weeks, then remembered about how I wanted to do something with Maldroid yesterday while I was scrambling to prepare another track to release. I scanned through my mp3 collection looking for a song that had either a quick enough BPM that I could slow down to match, and stopped when I saw my Outkast folder. I saw how Hey Ya had a really fast BPM, and tried it out. Instant success. This final version is only the second recording, that's how well these 2 fit. The biggest problem was figuring out where the beats STARTED in Hey Ya,but I got it right eventually, and here it is, not 12 hours later. Maldroid vs Outkast - He Said Hey Ya!

Daily Life:
So I'll give a story of what happened on Tuesday and Thursday, because they were the only real ponts of interest this week, nothing else happened, at all. It was Tuesday night at the college center, after I'd finished my classes for the day and had nothing else to do. So I've got with me, 5 rings, 5 balls, and nothing else. I realized the day before or so that I hadn't gotten anything but ball footage for my next video, so I dedicated myself to trying more ring stuff. Between chatting and hanging with all the members of the infamous MCC Corner, I managed to start filming myself doing strings of 4 ring tricks. I got a really good string of me doing a half shower to 8 catches of half overheads. I also managed to get a 4up 180 on camera and a few other good 4 ring tricks. Then I just stopped and hung out for a while.

About an hour and a half later, as a couple people start leaving for their 5:00 classes, I realize that I needed to get some new 5 ring trick for my next vid, especially since I need to come up with more anyways if I want to compete in the ring intermediates at WJF5. So I figured, it'd been a while since I last practiced my full reverse, and was about to try that, when I realized I never even tried a 5 ing half shower before. I tried it a few times, and got a 6 catch run before I gave up on it to try and run a full reverse. I spent a good ten minutes, and then I got a miracle run. I got 11 catches to a clean finish out of nowhere, on camera, but my friend blocked half the shot. Now THAT'S frustration for you. So I then stayed a bit longer trying to get another qualifying run of a full reverse, only to spend about 48 minutes failing in my attempts. Then, another miracle run. 10 catches to a clean finish on camera, after everyone else had left, and there was noone to block my shot. It felt good, to say the least. I'm not sure whether I was more adrenaline fueled from my earlier 7 ball qualify or this, but it was definitely close.

Thursday was a bit more fun. Again, I have a break between my classes, and I didn't like how the clouds were making it impossible to see my rings in the Tech Services Center foyer, so I ran over to the college center and ended up in the corner, yet again. I managed to qualify a 5 ring 6x4 as well, and that footage looks much nicer. So that was actually really easy to get. Only took less than 5 minutes to get a good run on camera. But that only took up about 10 minutes of the hour I had. What did I do for the rest of the time? Well, let's just say it was fun. Josh from work was there again, and I'm not sure whether I mentioned it or not, but he's also a child of the Middlesex County Academy. Being such, he is also an expert on the game known as Nutball, which if you've never heard of, is where 2 guys sit across a room (or in this case across the corner on opposite couches), spread eagle, and take turns trying to throw a ball (whether it be a racquetball traditionally, or a juggling ball in our case) and hit the other in the bullseye. The first person to puss out wins. I didn't start it, well, actually I did, but two guys from the corner were arguing and in the middle of it, they pick up my juggling balls and start throwing them at each other, at which point I grab my camera and declare an official game of Nutball.

Their game kinda sucked, because neither of them was willing to do anything other than a hard lob, and as soon as one of them started throwing with enough force to actually make the game interesting, the other pussed out. Being such, I couldn't leave it at that, so me and Josh, the 2 veterans, decided to go against each other to demonstrate proper Nutball technique. Of course, no matter who's playing, everyone always forgets rule #1 of Nutball, don't play it against a juggler. Whether that juggler be Steve-O, or Reeses2150, never play Nutball against anyone who's hobby is throwing balls around. Needless to say I hit the PERFECT Nutball shot on my 5th turn, bouncing off of the chair directly underneath the crotch bouncing upwards into the balls. VICTORY! We shook hands and I went to class.

Juggle This:
So now I have footage of me doing 5 ring 6x4 and a full reverse, as well as a couple 4 ring strings as well. Now all I have to do is get some more little things with rings and some club footage (oh joy...) and I'll be good to go with another try at editing this new vid. Still a little ways off.

I've also recorded a mini-video that I should put up shortly. I had the idea a few days ago to get one continuous shot (or one continuous angle if I edit it) of me doign my best tricks with single objects. Like my best contact juggling trick with one object, my best one club tricks, etc. I got the footage, and edited together a minute long video, and yeah. It's alright, nothing really spectacular aside from the club balance sequences that I spent 20 minutes tiring out my right arm getting. No name for it yet, but it should be up on Youtube at the most within the next 2 weeks.

You know what, writing that entire Nutball section of this post has given me an idea. The next Renegade show I go to, I'm having an open challenge to anyone willing to play a game of Nutball against me. That should steal the show.

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

Sunday, February 10, 2008

 

In the Lifespan of a Fly

Listen Up!
My next video for the [Juggling] series won't be out for a while. I just did the prelim edit and realized that I have nothing but ball footage, and nowhere near enough footage to fill up 4 minutes much less 6. I have decided on my music, however. Metallica - Enter Sandman. :: Just released another photography batch on DeviantART. Links are down below. :: I've still got plenty of videos cued up to release on youtube. Including another potential music video, tutorial, a talent show video from long ago, and a few other things maybe. :: BIG NOTE. The next Diggnation Meetup in NYC is coming up on Tuesday. Can't wait to get there, and a few people from the Computer Enthusiasts Club said they'd go, we'll see who shows up. :: Oh, I said last week that I'd beaten Elite Beat Agents and was going to put up a video, well, here it is. Look to your left.

And now for the DeviantART links. In order from best to worst (in my eyes):
A Warm Winter, Half Man, Half Mother, Talk About A Sunroof, The Shot Taken A Million Times, Uno Anevue, Gloom Thy Name Is, Fly Towards The Sun

-- Music Release --
Turns out I was able to come up with another one to fill this week's slot. We'll call this one the Wes Peden mix. Audiobody - Alright vs The Eels - Fresh Feeling. Both of which were used in videos by Wes Peden, and both great slower tracks by themselves. They fit so wsell together, I really wanted to add more to it after the first recording, but I kept finding that the more I did to it the worse it sounded. Less is more in this case I guess. So until my next one, which will be the complete opposite in terms of speed and intensity of the music, enjoy this nice slow bit. Audiobody vs The Eels - Feeling Alright. (and I forgot to add meta tags, but you know who did it.)

Daily Life:
Nothing really happened at work recently, however I did pay another visit to the Carmine Street Irregulars (the New York City Juggling Club), on the same day as the second Computer Enthusiasts Club meeting. If you somehow missed it, I'm in charge of meetings weekly as a vice-president and I have to attend. What, Like I wouldn't anyways?

So I wake up on Thursday and start packing my stuff. My original plan was to stay at CeC and discuss things and do whatever there until around 4:30 or so, at which point I would dart back to Sewaren where I would catch the bus to NYC at 5:00. Problem was, I went to NJtransit.com the night before and they seemed to have confused themselves and didn't show any pickups from Sewaren, even though the stop is still sitting on Port Reading Ave. Either way, I did some checking while I was at CeC and found the best bus for me to take was from the Port Reading stop at 5:15. It's literally a hop over the bridge on Port Reading Ave and it's a nonstop to Port Authority Bus Terminal in NYC. So I hung out until around 4:45 at CeC watching Blue Harvest and some other things with the guys, also talking about the Diggnation trip coming up, and whatever. So then I had to leave and I got home earlier than expected. I had packed up all my juggling stuff and my camera and everything the night before, so there really wasn't anything left for me to do but sit outside and wait for the bus.

The bus ride there was a fun trip. Since it's the after 5 bus, it's scheduled to hit traffic going into the Lincoln Tunnel, but we literally sat there at the entrance ramp to the tunnel from around 5:50 to around 6:20. I had my DS and was playing it for all the while, and we literally sat in one place, and didn't move for about 15 minutes. That was fun. But otherwise, we got to the city at around 6:40 and I was able to catch a cab and arrive early for the juggling club downtown.

The club meeting itself was great. Paris Paris was there, Ross Berenson was there, Sean Blue was there, still no Sky King, but I'll catch here there eventually. There was still no combat at the meeting, but me, Ross, and 2 other guys started coming up for ideas with a 4 person + sign passing pattern. We'd alternate in four count throwing Singles, doubles, then singles, and both teams would be in sync. So one team's clubs would pass ove the others. Worked better than I expected, and I got some footage of it. In the middle of our attempts, I got smacked in the face with a club, but hey, as I always say "At least it's on film. If you're going to do something stupid, get footage."

So the club ended pretty nicely, I headed back, and yeah, that was my day.

Juggle This:
I've been a bit bad with my juggling recently. Not as in like I can't do anything, but as in I have nothing to do. I've been doing almost nothing but siteswaps and stuff I already know, and have been getting bored with them. I was making the first test edit of my next juggling video, and I realized that I was doing nothing except learning to run siteswaps for more cycles like 4 cycles of 7531, 3 cycles of 744, 2 cycles of 66661, etc. That's impressive in itself, and I've been doing things like throwing a 645 and a 744 in the middle of a 5 ball half shower, but that's the problem. I'm doing not only the same stuff over and over again, but I haven't even gotten anything creative or new with any of my other props besides balls. So the next chance I get, I am having a serious jam session with nothing but rings, clubs, and boxes. Also, I've decided to see what other 5 ball siteswaps I may be able to do with throws of 6 and under, seeing as how I haven't learned a new one since I got 645 down, which was over 2 months ago. I stumbled upon 663 today, and DAMN. I haven't tried any 5 ball swaps with a 3 in them, and it's really weird feeling, I haven't felt this challenged in a while, and hopefully now I'll get down to practicing more. We'll see what happens.

So I've just released one of the video ideas I had that I HAVEN'T been talking about for the past few months. So I had this idea for a 3 ball trick a while back, where I'd throw a high ball, then throw the other two balls as 4's and then catch them both as reverse shoulder throws. I finally got the chance to practice it a month ago, and I got a ball stuck on the ledge on the very first attempt. I spent about 18 minutes throwing to get the 1st ball down, and I even got a second ball stuck up there while trying. So I had to move on to another object. Got them both though. I decided to keep my camera going for the entire thing because I thought it'd make an interesting video, which a lot of jugglers would go "THAT HAPPENED TO ME YESTERDAY!" So that's that video.

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

Monday, February 04, 2008

 

The Bigger they Are

Listen Up!
The Bigger The Comeback. Go GIANTS! If you've been living in a hole somewhere, you've come out just in time to join the celebration! What celebration you ask? The NYG have won SB-XLII. So now you know. Grab a beer and join the party! :: My next juggling video is starting to shape up nicely. I've gotten a lot of good footage of interesting tricks and this time I have sequences of tricks too. Right now I've started pre-editing, and I've got an idea as to what style it's going to be, but I may change my mind. We'll se what happens, it still won't come out for a little while. :: Well, JoJ is finally done, and there's more information on it in the juggling section. :: I'm getting ready to submit a new batch of photography to DeviantART, so get ready for that within the next 2 weeks. :: I've recorded a few more videos to submit to my youtube profile. I was starting to run low on clips to submit, but now I've got a tutorial to be released, my replay video of me beating the hardest level of Elite Beat Agents for the DS, a mini-juggling-video (like 7 balls 8 months), and at least 2 more random pieces of footage that won't work in a video.

-- Music Release --
My best mash, EVER. It's so good, Gordon said "It doesn't even sound like a mashup, it sounds like the song was made that way". That's how you know you did a good one. Either way, I should actually tell you what is is, shouldn't I? It's Moby - Go vs MXPX - Play It Loud. Both tracks are one of the biggest tracks for their respective artists, and they fit perfectly together on the first recording. So after I made the initial recording, I listened to it for a while, and figured I should add some more stuff to it. So I then managed to combine some elements from one of the tracks with the already combined track. Yes, I've begun layering my recordings. After about 3 or 4 passes, I got this, which sounds absolutely insane. Of course, now that I've started layering the tracks, it's taking me a lot longer to come up with the better results, so there may or may not be a new track next week, but I guarantee you you'll be listening to this one at least until then.
MXPX vs Moby - Go Play It.

Daily Life:
In Spencer's news, they rearranged some of the stuff in the store while I wasn't working, and it works better now, since it's a bit less cramped and we actually have enough room for all the clearance shirts we're practically giving away. Other than that though, the last 2 days I worked were pretty much uneventful.

I did however, get the chance to go to the first Computer Enthusiasts Club meeting at Middlesex County College this week. Wednesday between classes I met up with Gordon, who was still iffy about holding weekly meetings, and I convinced him to hold them, as a result, I'm now semi-in-charge of the weekly meetings that Gordon can't get to, and I'm also now co-vice president of the club. Hey, I'll take it if that means we keep up the momentum with weekly meetings. One thing I've learned managing podcasts, blog posts, and whatever regularly scheduled event, is that as soon as you slip, you fall. This blog almost fell under when I missed a week once, and then I just started missing almost every week's post until I realized what was happening and made it a rule to post every week. Same thing happened to my website, which I still haven't fully fixed yet. My point is that if the club wasn't going to meet weekly, it was going to start dying, and I'm not about to let THAT happen.

So the first meeting went really well, despite only having a few people show up thanks to the decision to hold that meeting the night before the meeting. But we got a lot of ideas put out, and we're staring a lot of projects. I've also started doing some photoshop work for thew club, including fliers and ads, and then also taking pictures at the meetings has also become my responsibility. Hey, I like being depended on for things, makes me feel useful. So that's that.

Juggle This:
What did I say I was going to talk about here? OH YES! Jugglers On Juggling. I'm not really surprised at everyone's reactions to me stopping the weekly episodes. A few people were sad to see it go, a lot of people were happy to see it go (I still can't understand it. I'm not forcing anyone to listen. I don't listen to Luke's podcast). I think a lot of people missed what I said though. Episode 30 was the end of the weekly episodes based on forum posts and juggling videos. From now on, I will still be producing episodes of JoJ, but only when there comes a new DVD that I get and review, a major topic that gets the ENTIRE community talking about it (like the Dave Altman banning from WJF, XJ vs WJF, etc), or whenever I go to a convention (or someone else goes to a convention and wants to give a report). Things of that sort. This is by no means the end of JoJ, though I might change the name to go along with this format change, seeing as how JoJ has such a bad reputation on everywhere but the WJF forums. We'll see what happens, the NY juggling festival is coming up soon, so we'll see how that goes.

As for other juggling related news or stories, I pretty much have nothing to talk about other than this nagging pain I've started getting on my arms over the past day or two. I have absolutely no idea where it came from, considering I haven't done too much juggling over the past week, and I haven't been working on anything like 7 ring qualifies, so I have no idea what it is. In me left arm, every time I straighten my elbow, I feel like I've got a pulled muscle on the inside of my elbow. In my right arm however, it's a more general pain, nowhere near as intense, but it hurts when I move my shoulder too quickly, or if I turn my wrist too far. I don't get it, and I'm hoping it'll all go away by the next few days. It hasn't really affected my juggling all that much, but I'm going to limit myself to just doing balls and no more than throws to a height of 6.

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

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