A Day In The Life Of A Peanut Butter Cup

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