A Day In The Life Of A Peanut Butter Cup

Listen Up!
NEW STUFF! YAY! I recently bought myself an external hard drive (750 gigs) because I was tired of burning excess files that I wasn't using to DVD's whenever my 100 gig HD filled up. I also bought a new set of rechargable batteries (so I can get more footage away from wall outlets), a 4gb thumb drive (because I lost my 1 gig a couple of months ago and 128 megs is not anywhere near enough for anything), and a little piece of software called DVD Ripper Pro (so I can FINALLY rip all my DVD's to my new HD. Only problem is that it doesn't work so well because I got it for 10 bucks.) :: Well, besides what I've BOUGHT, I've been getting even more used to working at the fabrication shop, and I actually think it's a better job than I've ever had before, I got a story from it this week, so more later. :: I just released my latest music video, not for the [Juggling] series, but the second part to the 48 Hours of Practice videos, this one being the best tricks I could do with Devil Sticks after 2 days of practice. :: Oh, and I've been letting a few people know about this already, so I may as well fill everyone else in. I'm working on the 3rd season of my old podcast Jugglers On Juggling. More on that in the juggling section.

-- Music Release --
Stacy's Mmmmm. I've fussed with this one for the past week, and I think it's about as good as it's ever going to get. Inspiration came from looking through my archive and seeing Hanson's Mmmbop. I remembered the track to be really blank in terms of lyrics, and really chorus heavy. Almost like the score of a movie of some sort, so I figured it's make a good underlaying track for a mash-up. Now the question bacame what track will be put over it. I figured, that since Mmmbop was a huge hit from the 90's, and it would be instantly recognizable, that I should get as easily recognizable song from around the same era. I thought about using the All American Rejects, Wierd Al, Eve 6, or maybe even Jimmy Eat World or Counting Crows. Nothing worked anywhere near as well as Fountains of Wayne though. Especially because Stacy's Mom is a very vocal focused song, the instruments drop out at a lot of points, and it's just great when you're looking for straight lyrics. So before I knew it, there I was fiddling with this new track.


Daily Life:
So this week at Acme Fabrication, we were cleaning out an office that was to become the new CAD lab. Let me set the scene. Picture a 10'x9' room, which has sat as a storage room for whatever, since 2002. Dust has been piled on everything to the point of actually being able to tell how long something has been sitting somewhere by eye. We actually ended up using a broom to sweep the dust off of the vertical walls of the room, that's how long the room had been unused. So the cleaning everything out of the room and dusting everything off including the room itself literally took all morning from 8:00 to noon.

So after lunch break, we had 2 hours to set up the entire room. We basically cleared out everything except for 1 long and low desk, 1 adjustable angle table from the stone age, and the drafting table in the corner (and of course the filing cabinet). So finally the room was set up and looked like an office. Now it was time to make everything work. First thing we did was decide that the long table was WAY too low to be of use to anyone over 14, and spent another half hour disassembling it and moving it out. Now we were down to 2 tables, so obviously the computer would have to be put on the adjustable table. The question was, where was that table going to go. Well, using my architecture experience, I figure out that since there's a window mounted air conditioner VERY close to a corner, angle the table at 45 degrees inside the corner, so it made a nice triangle behind it that would leave space for the wires to go and the heat to dissipate. Plus the Air Conditioner was now blowing right onto the person who would be sitting there, and would also aid in taking the heat from the corner and pushing it out into the room to dissipate further.

So that whole deal got set up and I spent the next hour or so moving the table and setting up the entire computer system, including an absolutely GORGEOUS brand new high resolution widescreen monitor, which had to be at least 34 inches wide, with a resolution of 2130x1200. I'm telling you, I almost got turned on by this monitor, that's how beautiful it was. Only problem was, the computer was running Windows 2000 and an ancient version of AutoCAD, but that still didn't detract from how awesome the setup looked now. So that got finished pretty easily.

Now came the real problem. There were no power strips in the building, and the monitor and pc both needed power from the only outlet on the one wall, and we needed to get a plotter (basically a giant, more accurate printer that is used to print out 36" wide pictures and drawings) hooked up somewhere. Luckily, after a little thinking, I realized that the wall on the opposite side of the door (the corner where the computer got setup is on the opposite side of the same wall as the door) not only had a power outlet, but also had enough room for the plotter to fit along without blocking the door or the drafting table. The only slight problem came when I was figuring out how to connect the plotter on the opposite side of the room to the computer. Luckily the cable was 18 feet long, and I just ran it over the frame of the door and taped it to the walls. Problems solved. Now Acme Fabrication has a fully functioning CAD lab that I was more than happy to setup and start using the next time I came to work.


Juggle This:
So yes, I am working on a new season of JoJ. Still making changes and trying to increase production value and content quality. I've got a bunch of ideas now that I'm thinking and planning again, but it's all right now just that, plans.

I've got the first episode planned out and ready to shoot maybe, and I guess I can tell about it's subject. It'll be about Juggling Forums. Ones that have failed, ones that have gone through changes, and more importantly, the giant trio of doom, and why they stand the way they do. I know that I'm not anywhere near a certifiable expert on juggling, but one of the things I AM certifiable on, is internet message boards. The other things I'm certifiable on being Photography, Web Design, and Video Editing, and those I all have plans to turn into episodes, but I won't go into detail on them yet. Just know that I've got plenty of ideas and this time I'll know what I'm talking about and not stating the obvious.

As for what else I've done juggling wise over the past week, well, I released my first Devil Stick video. 48 Hours Of Practice 2: Devil Sticks. So far, I've gotten a really nice response to it. I've got a theory on Devil Sticks, is that a lot of toss jugglers don't bother looking into Devil Sticks more than the basics, especially if the juggler is a hobby juggler and not trying to learn every aspect of it. So even with what I've done in the video, a couple toss jugglers are fascinated. I dunno. We'll see what happens, but my video went well, and I'm still picking up new tricks with the devil sticks. Just today I figured out how to use one stick to keep a standard right side-left side tap going.

I also have set rules for myself that at least 3 times a week I must either go outside or leave the house and find a nice high space to juggle in and practice high throws. It's helped. I just broke my 744 record today with 6 rounds of 744 back to a qualifying run. Still working on getting my 97531 more consistent.

Oh, and by the way, I finally tried 5 clubs again this week. Surprisingly, after doing my first successful flash back in "No Sleeves Attached", I haven't even tried 5 clubs again. So basically, this was only the second session I've ever tried 5 clubs with. The problem was partly because of me using Airflites back at the time, and I could barely hold 3 in one hand, much less catch them. Now that I've swapped them out for Radical Fish, it was much easier, plus the fact that I've gotten a lot better, means only one thing. Improvement. I got 6 clean catches (well, body collecting, but still). So that was awesome indeed. I still think it'll be a while before I give it my 3rd attempt though...



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

Listen Up!
So "Not Yet Famous" is doing pretty well. It's past the big initial wave of views and has kinda stopped at 450. That's good though, because it's already doing better than some of my other videos from the series and it'll still get a lot more views over the next few months. :: Now summer is here, so I can try to get more hours at work. I'll be going in tomorrow to see if I can get more, but I'm fine if I don't, because I'm already making a hundy and a half each week. More than I got working 5 days a week at Shoprite. And a bit better than what I got at Spencers and Uhaul too. :: So I've started summer meetings for the CeC club at MCC, and I'll have to say, the first meeting I'm thinking of as a test run. Only 2 other people showed up, the vice prez and the treasurer. Hopefully THIS week's meeting will be better, but me and the staff got flushed out a LOT of good ideas for the coming fall semester. :: Yup, that's about all the important stuff this week.

-- Music Release --
So i don't have anything to release, but I AM working on a few ideas I had recently, and none of them are really near ready to go except one which I hope to let out next week. Hanson - Mmmbop vs Fountains Of Wayne - Stacy's Mom. Sounds great so far, and it the keys match well, so yeah, that I just need to tweak up a notych and it'll be good to go.

As for other bit's I've got in my head: I've got no gaurentees that any of these will ever get done, just ideas I've got sitting in my projects folder.
Linkin Park - Numb vs Daft Punk - Around The World
Linkin Park - Numb vs Beastie Boys - Body Movin
Justice - DVNO vs ???? (Daft Punk - Creshcendolls maybe)
Analog Pussy - Rock and Roll vs Black Eyed Peas - Pump It
Maldroid - Pump it Up vs ????

Daily Life:
So the NYC Diggnation Meetup from last week. One of the best yet, only because now I am established as "The Juggler" and one guy even said that "the meetup wouldn't be complete without me", and the fast that I have a laptop and found an open Wi-Fi point outside that I could run bittorrent off of. Other than that, there were at least 40 people crammed into this tiny bar that was only designed for about 40 to fit in and everyone have a spot, and everyone broke into their groups right at the start as expected. Maybe I should start at the beginning though.

So I get ready to catch the bus back home in Sewaren around 3:00, and I've got a nice plan set to swing past Dube (as I usually try to do whenever I'm in NY, plus it's really close to Lunesa where the meetup was going to be held) and then head over to the meetup around 5:30 or so, that way I'd get there early and be able to do whatever. So the bus was, well, the bus, and being the 3:00 bus, I got into NYC without having to sit in traffic too much. I immediately grab the subway down to the street where Dube is. I've found recently that it is MUCH better to use the subway for $2 to get downtown, as where the same cab ride would cost me $15, so yeah. I come out at the right stop, and I knew beforehand that I'd have to walk around a bit before I found Dube from the subway point where we stopped, but I spent about 20 minutes circling the same block before realizing that there was a West Broadway and Broadway (where Dube is). So I got there a little later than I wanted, and it was great hanging out there.

So to sum it all up, I spend WAY too much time there, and leave at just around 6:30, and grab a cab over to the bar where the meetup was being held. I show up and things have started off already, again, noone else from the CEC club at Middlesex shows up, but I've basically given up on them showing up for anything other than the live Diggnation taping. Whatever, so the meetup goes very nicely, noone really bothers to actually watch the Diggnation episode, which is slightly expected. Lunesa is a good spot to hold a meetup, but nothing compared to what the Turtle Bay was due to the fact that we only got one screen and no sound system at Lunesa, as where Turtle Bay was an entire rave spot with plasma's and speakers everywhere. That's an entirely different rant though, and I want to save your eyes from reading too much. Simply saying, someone Ganked one of my props. luckily whoever took it took the least valuable prop I brought, one of my juggling balls, barely worth 10 bucks. Eh, it's the risk I take by bringing them and them leaving them in the corner alone.

So overall though, I met a LOT of new people there who were interested in the juggling, and strangely interested in just me as well. Awesome. So before it was all over, I was able to talk with Mike for a bit, and yeah. Just kinda hang out with fellow geeks for a few hours. Mike is really getting attached to me, he's actually convinced the guys who will be running the stage at the Live Diggnation coming up to let me on stage to juggle before and after the show. Hey, it works, if I can get on Diggnation again, awesome.

So the meetup started winding down and most of everyone had gone, including Mike and the other organizers, and this was at only around 11:00 or so, which was weird, but then again we started an hour earlier than usual. So I catch a cab back to Port Authority Bus, and grab the 11:30 bus back to Jersey. Good times.

Juggle This:
So I've been practicing with the Devil Stick, and I'm starting to get a feel for it. I've still got t finish making the 48 hours of practice video for it though. It should be out by next week if things go good.

As for what I've been practicing with my toss juggling, I've been working on a nice trick I saw someone do on Youtube, a 5 balls multiplex cascade done as a mills mess. Harder than it looks, by leaps and bounds. Though I have been able to do it as a false shower. I love false showers. I've also been working on lowering m patterns as a trick. I just finished a session tonight and was able to qualify 5 balls under neck level, and a 5 ball half shower at about eye level.

But actually I've been working on my tricks that I do with lower numbers in performance, because I realized recently that I have yet to have a dropless performance anywhere, no matter how long or short, and the least drops I've had in a performance was 3. So I am definitely working on a new set of onstage tricks so that I can get more recommendations. Hopefully I'll have a lot of gigs this summer, I feel ready for them.

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

Just a quick not thing, I found online the newspaper article MCC did about me. Here's a link to it.

MCC Superstar Juggler Reeses Kohut - Entertainment

NEW FUCKIN VIDEO!

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Listen Up!
Well, I guess weekly posting is back, and thank god for it. But I'm no longer going to be manually pasting it to my website, nor am I going to put out new music every week. I just can't. I won't obligate myself because then I think to myself on Sunday "Ah, well, I really don't want to write up a new blog post today, PLUS I don't have music to release and I don't want to have to drag everything over to my website" and I end up not doing it. Unlike where if I just didn't feel like doing the blog post, I could force myself to start it, and then that's the thing with me is, once I start typing, I can't stop for anything. As you can see by how this one original sentence has turned into a paragraph without me noticing.

Finals are done. I believe I've done well on all of them, and now I just need to worry about what to change my major to, the summer meetings for the Computer Club, and of course making things. :: My new video is out, finally. So far it's been the best reviewed one yet. We'll just have to wait and see what the view counts become though. :: I haven't played my Nintendo Wii for way too long, even though I have still yet to complete both Smash Bros Brawl and Mario Kart. I'll get on the tonight hopefully. :: Yup.

-- Music Release --
New Music YES! Well, this I came up with last week and wanted to post but I didn't think it was done and ready. I've finished it now and here you go. I've been listening to 3 bands/tracks recently that I've REALLY been into and wanting to use. Spoon, Maldroid, and Justice. All three of them I want to do something with, so here's the first. I was, as my new strategy is, not TRYING to find and make something, but rather just listen and hear what sounds best. Let things make themselves. That's something I learned with photography a while ago, and have been applying to every form of content generating I've done since. The best things just seem to make themselves. Same here.

So I was listening to spoon and thinking that it was great, and not missing bunch, but that a backbeat that repeated forever was in order, and what better than Daft Punk to provide that? So here's Spoon - Don't You Evah, and Daft Punk - Da Funk twirled into a brandy new mash-up.
Spoon vs Daft Punk - Funk For Evah

Daily Life:
I knew I was forgetting to talk about something interesting last week. I got another job from Universal Talent. Again, in NYC, and again, as a background extra. It was pretty good, especially now that I know exactly what happens and what I have to do.

So I get the call a few days ahead of time and accept the job. Now the info is that the call in time is in Uptown Manhattan, right next to Central Park, at 5:00 AM. "5AM? Holy Shit" I say to myself, so the day that happens I am literally not going to sleep. So skip ahead a few days, and I've stayed up all night and it is now 4:00 AM. I've never driven this early before, and I guess noone else does either, because I leave, and literally do not see another car being driven until I am on the Turnpike. That was cool. So I get there, find a parking spot a few blocks up, and get ready to check in. First, I grab a ham and cheese sandwich for my breakfast at the breakfast table outside, jump downstairs to holding, and fill out the sheet to sign in.

Now, this isn't a commercial we're shooting for, it was a full movie (I forget the name) and so it's even more strictly organized. Nothing really happens and I'm just playing soduku in holding until it's time to start shooting, which was somewhere around 9. So shooting begins, and I'm assigned to this one scene where the ma9in character is getting picked up by the cops and driven off. I'm part of a group of 4 people that are walking from around the corner of the street, and down towards where he's being picked up. I was set to stop at the bus stop and wait there for the bus as the guy was getting picked up. Simple enough, right?

Well, there were 2 things that made it fun. First, the group I was with was made up of 2 first timers and someone who wasn't really paying much attention. So when we were told to leave a few beats between each of us turning the corner, they took it as 3 or 4 seconds, and all three came around the bend as if they were a single group of people. It took me 3 takes to get them to split up enough.

The next part that made it interesting was when people (who weren't part of the movie crew) starting going right through the shooting area without even noticing the shoot. Typical for New Yorkers I guess, but every take we would literally be shooing people off to the other side of the street in order to start filming. That was a fun game of cat and mouse looking for everyone who wasn't part of the shoot.

But after about 20 takes or so, they finally got the one they wanted, and they threw us all back to holding until the next scene. The next scene was much simpler and much shorter, as it was inside the police building, and all we had to do was sit in chairs, that took only about 3 or 4 takes and then we were done for the day. It was barely 2:00. So I hopped across town and made my way back to home. I never knew that the Lincoln Tunnel only charged going into NYC. I guess I just never noticed it before.

Next Week I'll be talking about the recent NYC Diggnation Meetup.

Juggle This:
So I don't know why, but I've picked up a set of Devil Sticks. Yes, Devil Sticks, the one prop I've claimed to never be able to do, I am now practicing. And I hate them. Maybe I should have started off with some flower sticks, but then again I've never been one to go the easy route (having learned to juggle using unmodified tennis balls). So I'll be making another "48 Hours Of Practice" video today, when I get a free minute. I guarantee it'll suck.

Otherwise, I've picked up my boxes again and started sucking with them again. However, the rust is slowly peeling away now that I've practiced with them, and it's starting tho get better.

Other than that all useless information, enjoy the new video!

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

Listen Up!
Back to the weekly posts, I hope. :: It has been WAY too long since the last video in my [Juggling][ series. I think I've got enough base footage, and some REALLY good tricks, that I can start editing the new one. SO I just got the name and music settled, and the trailer is on YT. :: College semester is ALMOST over. Already had my Hydro final and it was easier than I expected it to be, so yay!. Now all I have is my Statics, which isn't going to be too bad. :: Work is going well, I still haven't really found any major things I hate about working at a machine shop other than the early hours. It's been a great job so far over the past few weeks, and hopefully I'll work there more hours during the summer, which I anticipate will suck because of the heat, but eh... :: Let me think, what else. Oh, Gordon has stepped down as president of the Computer Enthusiasts Club at MCC, meaning that I am now the president. :: The new lap[top still kicks ass. I can't see how I lived without one for so long. Check that, I HAVEN'T lived until I got my laptop. ::

Daily Life:
SO I've started becoming more normal than I think I want to be. I'm not sure what sparked it, but all of the sudden I've decided to use the exercise equipment in the basement of my house daily, eat less (or at least I've realized that I'm not as hungry as I used to be), I'm finding myself studying for finals without being told to, and all of the sudden, I'm looking for women to go out with. Strange indeed. At least I haven't gone to sleep before 3:AM yet.

As for what's actually happened recently, absolutely nothing. Literally. I haven't done a damned interesting thing over the past week, which is a big shocker for me, because something usually happens. I think the most interesting thing was part of my job, where we had to go finish installing a glass railing on the deck of a house in Toms River that was right on the beach. Now I know why those houses cost billions instead of millions, not only do you walk out onto the deck and the ocean is right there in front of you, but the houses themselves are worthy of being on TV. A sign of things I'll never have unless ABC, NBC, of FOX suddenly realize my potential as a TV personality and make me the star host of their next reality TV series...

As for the job, we didn't have to do much, just clean up the glass, install the top railing onto the glass, and install the waterproofing at the bottom. It was all good, and it took up and entire shift with the nice cool ocean breeze coming in. That was great.

Juggle This:
I have been getting better with my practice schedule. I realized recently however, that I'm practicing Balls, Rings, and Clubs (especially clubs, with my new found love for them), however ALL of my other props have just been sitting there, and I picked up my boxes to see just how bad I've been with them after not practicing for months, and DAMN I suck with them now. I guess that's the bad part about trying to learn everything, is that some things just get too pushed aside. Hey, at least now I can hold my own with 3 clubs against a street performer in NYC. Before I was having a bit of a hard time with doing a full reverse, now that's cake. So I guess it was worth it.

Yeah, not really much else to talk about except for my new video coming out, and that's it. So enjoy the teaser for it. It'll be coming out later tonight actually, so hooray for you!

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