A Day In The Life Of A Peanut Butter Cup

Listen Up!
What happened today? Too much, but I'll get to that later. For right now, let's get the usual updates out of the way.
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Jugglers On Juggling. Yes, I know that episode 6 is already a full week late. Believe me, I've got a topic for it and I've planned out what I'm going to say. all I have to do is record it, edit it, and put it up. I should be able to do all of that tomorrow if nothing goes wrong, and then after that I'm back to being out of ideas for episode topics. Ah, the vicious cycle of forced inspiration. I think that episode 7 may just be a special all about rings episode. Because I think they are the absolute BEST and most neglected prop in juggling.
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College, puttering along as usual. Of course today's story has to do entirely with what happened today at college, but that I'll get into later. Let me just say it again. Solid Modeling Professor is an idiot, Photo 1 is fun as hell, Business 101 is easy as hell and the best professor ever, and Art in Industry and Commerce is a simple and fun class. I'm getting at least C's on basically every paper I get back. So things are lookin' up.
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What else to talk about, OH! My next major juggling video! It's basically ready to go! I've already uploaded the trailer, which it has 100+ views just by itself, and I'm going to use that trailer in episode 6 of JoJ. Then the video will be uploaded on the 28th. YAY! Ok, so the first music video is 4 minutes long, then I've got a second bonus video in there because I had so much good footage I didn't want to waste, so add another 2 minutes. It's about 6 and a half minutes long.
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My preparations for WJF5. Everything looks fairly promising. I haven't gotten worse with my ring skills from where I was, and every practice session I do it takes me less and less time to warm up enough to start going through my routine. This may end up being not such a total disaster after all. Wouldn't it be a shock if I were to win ring intermediates? WhOAH that would be awesome!
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Daily Life:
I started writing this post on Monday after coming home from the awesome trip of hell and fire, but then stopped because I just needed sleep after that day was over. So now I get to talk about it! YAY!

Ok, so here I am trying to get my sleep schedule back on track because for the past week, I've been going to sleep at times between 5:00 AM (and no earlier) and 6:45 AM. Needless to say, that's a bit bad, even for me. SO I decided the night before that I would try to reset my internal sleep clock by depriving myself of sleep one night then making up for it the next. Seems to have worked by the way, but the problem was, the day I decided to deprive myself of sleep for, was Monday. So I've got 2 classes, one of which is a field trip for Photo 1 class into New Brunswick, and I'm doing it on 4 hours of sleep.

So the day starts off fine, considering the 4 hour sleep part, and then I walk into my Solid Modeling class. He assigns 2 drawings to be handed in at the end of the period, from parts which we have to take the original measurements on. If you don't know engineering or how much work that is in CAD, it's like asking someone to fix the lawn mower in ten minutes. Granted, it CAN be done, but you'll be rushing like MAD to get it done. So that was fun, and in fact, most of the class had to stay in the class for a half hour after it ended to get the drawings done. So what was supposed to be my hour of juggling practice at 5:00 turned into my 20 minutes of practice at 5:40. Douche.

So after coming back from a horrible session because I couldn't warm up, it was time for Photo1. Now, last week in the middle of my last roll of film for an assignment that was due that day, my camera BROKE. It stopped advancing the film inside for absolutely no reason, and I still haven't managed to fix it yet. SO I'm having to rent out one of the piece of shit college cameras. Why are they a piece of shit? They don't have any light meter inside of them, they don't have the ability to recommend a shutter speed, and to top all that off, you have absolutely no idea whether the film inside is advancing because the slot for the film on the opposite side of the canister will NOT have a firm grip on the film at any time. I developed an entirely blank roll the last time I used that camera because the film slipped out of the grip and didn't advance.

So here I am with a piece of shit camera, running around New Brunswick trying to shoot a series of things the professor wants, in the cold rain and people staring at us. I'm used to the staring and I've got absolutely no problem with the rain, but the thing is to take this series of shots, we had to run around a total of 8 blocks around a square each side. So the total was about 24 blocks of New Brunswick that the groups had to run around from. Now the shots themselves were rather easy, but another one of the problems was we had a hand drawn map, that only I was able to read. Our group would walk around for about 10 minutes before I'd get fed up, hand the equipment I'm carrying (tripod, camera, light meter, backpack, and another camera) take out the map, and point us in the correct direction. This was even more annoying when the blocks turned hilly and we had to walk up and down.

Example, we had to go to a storefront and take a picture of the Boar's Head sign hanging in the window. No problem, did that, waited for everyone else who didn't know their camera from a block of cheese to do it, and followed them downhill to the next shot. The next shot was a picture of a building. They got to the bottom of the hill and then started wondering which building everyone needed to photo. I again, 5 minutes later, unload my shit on someone else, and I say "Ok, in 5 seconds I will tell you the correct building. 1..." and between 1 and 3 I take the map out of my pocket and open it, on 4 I find where we are on the map, which way we're oriented, and where the building was in relation, and on 5, point and go "That one". Guess where it was. Right at the top of the hill we just walked down on the other side of the street...

So I lug all this crap back to the top of the hill, and begin finding the right spot to get the entire building in frame. It was a little tough because of the amount of trees there were right in our way, but I found the spot, and took my shots (from the sidewalk). The rest of the people in my group though, except for the one guy who actually knows shit about his rights and photography, jump up the ledge and onto the grass of this private property and start to frame their shots. Of course now, the security guard shows up and starts being an absolute dickhole about us being on private property. You know, the classic stuff "I'm gonna call the cops!" "You'd better delete that film!" ""You have no right to take pictures of this building!". Which of course he was 100% correct about, for the idiot Indian chicks sitting there with tripods and telephoto lenses on the grass. But then he walks over to me and starts giving ME shit.

Now, my feet are already tired, I'm sleepy, cranky, I've already taken the shots I need of the building, and I've only got 1 thing left to photo, so I figure I'm not going to argue with this ignorant ass and make his day, I just grab my stuff and walk away to the next shot which was right down the adjacent street. Now here's the thing, the Indian idiots, are actually ARGUING with this guy. "Oh, we got permission from our professor to take pictures!" "You can't take our film!" "We have the rights!" UHhhhhhhhhhh........

I literally grab them and drag them away meanwhile they're calling the professor on their cell phones to try and fight with the guy. I have absolutely no idea how, but I managed to distract them long enough and convince them to move on to their next shot, meanwhile the guard is following us on the other side of the street. I know he can't do anything to me, so I just smile and wave. The next shot I find, is a tombstone that we have to take a picture of in a graveyard. Now, on the sheet of paper with the list of things to photo, he has on it "Tombstone 17417 + 1793" or whatever, so I and everyone else assumes that it's a specific tombstone with those numbers on it that we need to photo.

Well, after a half hour of walking around the graveyard in the rain with sore feet and a bad temper, I find nothing. So I just say to the other logical guy in the group "Fuck it, let's just photo a random tombstone and go get food." He agrees, we take a picture of a tombstone, and star walking back up the street, when the other group decides to join us, and they ask me and the other guy for help with their cameras. We can't be assholes, so we sit there for another half hour helping these idiots from failing. We FINALLY get done, and I figure "OK, I'm not letting ANYONE else lead me back to the vans, because I don't want to backtrack with the way my feet hurt, I'M NAVIGATING."

So we get back to the place where we're supposed to meet our professor, which was a Dunkin Donuts, and bam, he's not there. Now everyone's confused and wants to go look for him. Again, I say "Fuck That. There's a pizza place across the street, I'm going to get a slice, if he shows up, come and tell me." I walk across the street and look into the window, guess who I see... ... PROFESSOR WHITEY! (that is his actual name by the way, it's awesome)

I yell to the guys outside Dunkin Donuts that he's there, but still they insist on sitting there for another ten minutes while I sit inside eating my pizza. So as soon as that's over, we all pile back into the rented transport vans and head back to Middlesex for cookies and pie (I wish)...

Now, seeing as how we just spent 3 hours in the New Brunswick Rain and class was supposed to end in about 20 minutes, the professor gave us the due date on the shots we took as next week, and boom we were off. Of course, he offered everyone who was in Lot 1 (the furthest lot from the building we were in) to jump in the van and be driven to their cars (seeing as how we just walked 24 blocks through rain in New Brunswick). Of course, I take the opportunity right then. "The van doors are still unlocked" he says, and so I run right into the van with a few others expecting him to be out within the next 60 seconds.

Flash forward to ten minutes later and he's still not there, and I'm jonzing to watch Heroes. He finally comes out to drive us out, and I FINALLY am ready to go home. At this point, I don't want to talk to anyone, walk anywhere, do ANYTHING except get home and watch Heroes. So I put on my Daft punk CD, make my way down 287, and boom I'm home. "FINALLY" is the last thing that goes through my head as I lay back and hit the TV on button...


Juggle This:
So my 7 rings hasn't improved, well mostly because I've been too busy practicing my 4-6 in preparation for WJF5, but that's besides the point. I just figured I'd give an update on that because I still CAN'T BELIEVE I GOT 11 CATCHES OF 7 RINGS!

SO back to what matters, Jugglers On Juggling. I was planning on recording the new episode tonight and having it out tomorrow, but that's obviously not going to happen, so I'm still completely stuck on what's going to happen with it. All I know is this, I'm going to make it a screen-cap episode, where I record what's going on on screen as I'm editing together and explaining what makes a good trailer for a new video, DVD, or pay for project, and yeah, that will be the episode, because there's a LOT of material to cover in there and not enough people really know how to create hype for their stuff. So whenever I get the chance to, I'll be doing that. For now, Enjoy the trailer for my next video, Zero Sixteen...



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

Listen Up!
Well, it seems that all of my professors have collaborated against me to make sure that at the end of the semester I have absolutely no time to do anything besides the necessary and classwork. Let's see, I've got final exams in all my classes starting two weeks from now, I've got another quiz before the finals in two of my classes, projects that are due both Tomorrow and on Wednesday in two classes, and my Solid Modeling teacher is still and idiot and thus has assigned us the semester project with nowhere near enough class time to complete it. Good times indeed. My brain is turning to liquid from merely thinking about it.
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*Brain re-solidifies.
So, other than that hell, I';ve got the hell of trying to find a job STILL. Everything I've tried for so far has fallen through, however, I've decided to look up and do research on the walls of MCC because usually those are the classic good student jobs like canvassing, fed-ex shipping, and other. So I've got the info for a fed-ex place, and that's what I'm going to try first.
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Jugglers On Juggling. Yeah, I'm struggling with it right now, because I can't find not only the time to do it now between all this college and job bull that I have to do, but I'm also completely drawing a blank as to what new episodes should be about or what to say. I've got a few ideas, but for all of them I can't seem to come up with more than 2 or 3 points for each. It's frustrating and yeah, I'm seeing what I can do, but for the moment I'm throwing it on the back-burner. I'll work on it if/when I have time or inspiration. Otherwise, I'm busy with other things.
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Tech.MCC, the one other thing ruling my life right now. Well, not really, I'm only thinking about it the day before the meeting, so yeah. Last week's meeting was the Videography meeting (part 1), and it was probably the biggest turnout of the semester AND the best meeting of the semester. I'll go into details in a few minutes because I really want to talk about it. Until then, this week's meeting is sure to be just as good. Otherwise, that's it for the main updates.
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Oh, and also. My next [Juggling] Series video is going into it's final editing stages. I should be having a release date set before the end of the month, and if all goes well I'll have the video up and viewable before WJF5. WOO!

Daily Life:
With Tech.MCC, I had the idea to do a meeting focusing on teaching the basics of making a short film since I decides back during the summer to make the meetings more like workshops, and I'd been saving it for when I thought I could get JT to help me with it from the start. Of course, me not being in regular contact with him, the meeting slipped further and further back, until I realized that there's really only three available meetings left to do it on, so here I am doing this meeting entirely on my own, with only the preparations that I'd made the night before.

So my ORIGINAL plan for the meeting was as follows. I would start the meeting by getting people to suggest exactly what type of scene they wanted, whether it be a fight scene or a comedy sketch, or whatever. From there, we would draft a storyboard and plan out the shots. Then go out into the hall and shoot the shots, come back into the room and convert, then edit the video together and put it up. That was my original concept for the meeting.

I'd decided the night before the meeting that we would do a one punch scene and I would just have them suggest camera angles and get them to think about why the lighting and camera angles was good. Basically try to get them thinking like videographers. So I'd introduce the concept, then work up the first 4 or five shots on my own to give them an idea of how to come up with shots, then guide them through with whatever shots and angles they'd come up with. Then we'd find out who was acting things out and shoot the video from there in the room. Why the room? because I remembered that night that my main digital camera had a cable that plugged in and converted into standard VGA cables that could plug into the projector, that way everyone could see what the camera was seeing AS we were shooting. Brilliant, eh?

So we star off the meeting in exactly that way. I explain the concept of the one-punch scene and draw up the first few shots on the story-board. Then I give them free reign to suggest whatever angles they wanted for the next set of shots, and they really started getting creative. I was helping them along by reminding them of how we had to maintain the setting and position of the actors throughout the scene, and about how we can cheat the viewer, so we REALLY got dirty with it. It was awesome. I was acting out where the subjects would be as the person suggesting a camera angle would be showing it using the camera on the projector, we'd act out exactly what happens where, and discussing where is the cell phone the guy was holding from shot to shot and how does the actor stay in position from one shot to the next. It was all really good.

So after the story-boarding was done, JT walks in. Perfect timing, we decide that it was a perfect time to break because we literally just spent an hour and a half story-boarding this scene out and explaining EVERY principle of videography that I knew, so I gave them a while to absorb it all as me, JT, and one of his film-making friends came in to join us.

So now that we've taken a break, it's time to start shooting, and now things get interesting. Gordon jumps in and gets as many people to handle the camera as they wanted, and seeing as how I was the lead actor and one of the other members was doing the falling over and stuff, we had practically every member of the club doing something from JT suggesting slight tweaks to the camera angles and his friend giving me acting tips, to Gordon suggesting two people hold onto the camera for one shot because it needed to be a really steady angle. We spent at least an hour shooting all this great footage, and then all of the sudden we look at the clock and see that it's already 5:00 and time for the club to end. So I end the meeting there and say that we'd begin the next meeting by editing the video together and uploading it at the beginning. It's going to be just as good I think, so yeah. That was probably the best meeting we've had all year, and actually I dare say the best meeting I've been a part of since my joining the club. Even JT said that we did a better job actyively producing a video than the AV club has done the entire semester.


Juggle This:
I can barely believe it, but I've not only managed today to do my first seven ring flash, but within the span of one hour from my first ATTEMPT at a flash, I got 11 catches of a full cascade! You see, it's feelings like this that remind me of why I love juggling so god damned much.

So I've been wanting to work on seven rings for a LONG time now, ever since I first qualified 7 balls, but have never found a good 4 ring grip that would allow me enough comfort and accuracy to actually throw it at all. So for a while I wanted to make myself a holster, but never really felt the pressing desire to. I just figured I'd make it one day and not do 7 rings for a long time. Then suddenly, I was looking around in my prop box the other day and realized that I hadn't used my 3 fat rings in YEARS. So I immediately decided that I wasn't going to hesitate, I grabbed one of them and brought it down to my basement workshop to tinker and turn it into a holster. My first attempt was to slice the ring into a 1/3 section and see how that works. Of course it failed miserably, so I went straight to getting a 180 degree section. I sliced the ring in half with my regular hacksaw, then carved out the inner section with my precision saw, ad it absolutely worked beautifully. The ring stays in very nicely until I take it out, and it comes out very easily, but only when pulled upwards in the right way. Perfect. So I drill a hole in the plastic and attach the hook necessary to hook it onto a belt loop, and away I go to try it out.

Of course, I wasn't going to wait to try it out, so I run outside and give it a go, only to realize that the winds that night were way too much, even for clubs it would have caused problems, so I suck it up and save trying it out for today.

Absolutely perfecto on the very first use, and I'm flashing seven rings within ten minutes. And I've got nothing more to say except that that made me so happy that I'm still in a good mood despite my film class being complete hell because my camera broke halfway through a film shoot, then having my second roll of film not advance in the rental camera so that I develop a blank roll, then having to produce a contact sheet and bs my way through an assignment because I can't go out and re-shoot it within the remaining 20 minutes before it's due.

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

Listen Up!
Really hasn't been much to talk about that doesn't have to do with juggling, seeing as how I'm STILL on the hunt for a job. I've decided to go for 2 of the safer job offers next week if I can't get any responses for anything.
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College is exactly the same, except now I'm getting grades back that aren't lowerr than C's, which is astounding to me, but not unexpected.
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And Tech.MCC is kind of a clusterfuck right now with how I have no idea what's going on from one week to the next, but this week's meeting should clean up a bit.
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Oh, and one big announcement before I go, I'VE GOT MY NEXT MAJOR JUGGLING VIDEO ALMOST READY TO GO! I should be releasing a trailer for it sometime within the next week. So check that next week.
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ALSO, to go along with that, I figured a good topic for the next episode of JoJ is going to be how to promote your videos once you've made them and get more subscribers on youtube.

Juggle This:
So the issue is that jugglers are beginning a trend of making what were free videos before now, into longer and more elaborate videos that need to be paid for. So far, two jugglers have done this, and it really is a fear of mine and a few others that this will become a trend. But let me rant about why this can be a good and a badf thing.

This is a price vs. quality debate.

The issue is that it's such a blurry line between what is worth five
dollars, what's worth ten dollars, and what isn't worth paying for at all.
Some people think a good background and high production value are
critical, others don't. Some think that the price of a video is based
ENTIRELY on the technicality of the tricks within the video, and others
think that the price should be determined by the ORIGINALITY and
CREATIVITY of the tricks in the video. The whole deal is that there are
SO many factors that make up the answer to "What is a good video?" that
you may as well write a book about it.

We're looking at this from the point of view of the consumer, which is
exactly what we are. Does this video, from what I can see in the trailer
and what other people are saying, justify the $10 price tag? A lot of us
(including myself) are coming to the answer, no. As where from Tony's and
Wes's point of view, they're seeing the business side of it, which is "I'm
a good juggler and I need money. What's the best way to use my juggling
to make money?". The problem I'm seeing, and I'm learning about this in
my business classes anyways, is that they're just looking at the smaller
issue of production and selling. From what I can tell, they're not
thinking "Ok, I've just made my video and am about to sell it for this
much, and it sounds good to me. BUT WHAT WILL MY AUDIENCE THINK OF THE
PRICE FOR THIS VIDEO?" I'm absolutely certain that the videos are great,
and they've definitely had a lot of work put into them, both for Wes and
Tony, but let me give you an example.

Peden 2 Sweden - the first and second ones, plus Peden Tricks Sweden, were
both 5 dollars, and justified that price tag with a 20 minute run time and
the knowledge that there were some insane tricks in them. I knew that it
was about 4 or five kickass videos done to kickass music, and I bought all
three and still watch them regularly.

Now let's talk about why I regret buying Expectations. I bought it
straight away thinking it would be more of the same. I was shocked when I
realized after watching it that it was only half of the same. There was
much less of the "Here's a bunch of awesome tricks one after another
edited to really AWESOME music by someone else" and much more of "Here's a
routine I did and I want you to appreciate everything about it so I'm
going to not put any music over it or just add mood music". Which I
understand is more artistic and has deeper meaning, but THAT'S NOT WHAT I
WAS LOOKING FOR. I'll go to an art gallery or a film festival if I want
deeper meaning in a video. What I loved about the old Peden 2 Swedens was
that it WASN'T all about "here's a routine", it was about "Here's one
awesomely insane trick right after another." But I'm getting
side-tracked. The point was that he not only went in a direction which I
didn't like as the consumer, but he upped the price too.

Let me say though that I am not the center of the universe, and Wes
certainly shouldn't cater to me specifically, nor should anyone else. I'm
absolutely positive that there's plenty of people that loved Expectations
over Peden To Sweden, as well as Wes's new Manipulation > Toss Juggling
style. I'm saying that I personally am not going to buy any more of his
videos if they're still going to be made this way.

What was the point I was trying to make though? OH YES! The blurred line
of quality vs price. To sum up the last 2 paragraphs neatly, The Peden To
Sweden videos were exactly what I wanted and loved (VERY high quality
level, FOR ME), for an awesome price (again FOR ME). As where
Expectations was very little of what I wanted (very low quality FOR ME),
and was at a much higher price (for ME). Bottom line, is it subjective,
YES. But my point is that I am the consumer, and making a product (in
these cases, videos) should be all about what the CONSUMERS want, not what
the producers want. It's the same argument that can be used for making a
good performance routine, it's all about what the AUDIENCE and what they
want to see, not what you want to perform.

Tony's new video I won't comment on, because after watching the trailer
again, I've decided to buy it and won't talk about what I haven't seen.
But here's a good example, after watching the trailer again, why have I
suddenly decided to buy it? Because the tricks look awesome, and from
what I can tell, it will be the "here's a crapload of awesome tricks
edited together to awesome music" style that I love. Note, I didn't say a
single thing about background or production quality, because that doesn't
mean hardly anything in my eyes. "Then why was I not going to buy it
before?", price. Ten dollars is a lot when you've got no job and an empty
gas tank.

Let me wrap up my thoughts quickly into a nice conclusion by saying this.
Paid videos are great, but only when they give you WHAT you want, at a
price that you find reasonable (including free).

But let me make one more point before I end.

Remember Mediocrity? Wes's 6 minute movie done to kung fu music that he
made right after getting his first sponsorship from Dube and Sportco? I
would have PAID for that video. Because the tricks were awesome, and it
was EXACTLY what I wanted. Granted, I wouldn't have paid 10 dollars for
it, but if when Wes released Mediocrity he sold it for say, three bucks?
You bet your ass I'd have bought it. In fact, I'd actually buy a higher
quality version of that very video NOW for three dollars.

My point here is that it's very hard to know what you're worth, so you
have to do some RESEARCH and get some FEEDBACK. When I went and made my
DVD to sell when I did a week long charity gig where my only way to make
money was to sell DVD's, I made the DVD weeks in advance and then asked
around with my non-juggler friends what they would pay for the DVD, I lent
them a copy each and when they had finished watching it the next day, I'd
get an email from them saying "five bucks", or "ten bucks" or "50 cents".
And from those responses (I had at least 5 people see it), I set a price
of 5 dollars and sold enough to make a good profit from them. I also used
to do this before releasing my regular juggling videos, but then realized
that I was giving them out for free no matter what.

So if you DO want to make a paid video or DVD, for the love of god, get
feedback, ESPECIALLY from the specific audience that will be watching it,
so that you can maximize the amount of happy people and minimize the
amount of pissed off people. Something Tony didn't do, I'm almost
positive of that.

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

Listen Up!
Ok, so I'm late. I've been busy making sure I don't FAIL MY MIDTERMS! I just gave my parents a heart attack with that line. hehehehe.....
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So, let's talk college. Midterms went by surprisingly smoothly, though I'm beginning to realize that my Photo 101 professor is just winging it. We haven't actually had to hand in any assignments for the past 3 weeks, and we're all learning how to do stuff like enlarge negatives ourselves. That and he REALLY likes to ramble at the beginning of class, enough so that it cuts into what he's actually planned for us to learn that day. I guess it's a thing with art professors...
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Jugglers On Juggling. Now this is getting to be interesting, because I've been receiving less and less feedback, especially constructive criticism, and especially on Rec.Juggling. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad omen. I'm watching my own episodes before I release them now, so I know that my quality of content isn't lacking, and the audio quality isn't bad either. It's all just kind of dying off slowly, and each new episode is getting less views on youtube. This is exactly what I was afraid of happening since I STARTED JoJ, was that it would be a slow death that is just slow enough so that people will completely forget about it and not care anymore. I know that the casual and beginner juggling audience will always be watching, they've been my core viewers since the beginning, but I really don't know what the future looks like for my fledgling little internet show...
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What else to talk about, AH! Mobius-X. Well, the forums seem to be going along quite nicely now that things have picked up again and old members have come back. We destroyed the old website as it was running out of server time, and it went away in a blaze of, well, something. As we completely opened up the admin panel to every member and allowed everyone to screw with the old boards as much as they wished. That was fun. But yeah, so the new forums are doing well, and it's really quite refreshing actually...
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My job search. Well, I'm about to go pick up my last paycheck for Canvassing, and after that, I'm really not sure yet. All the CAD jobs I've found so far have fell through, so now I'm looking for some general labor jobs on craigslist again, and yeah. But basically, I really don't see a HUGE OVERWHELMING need to get myself a new job, because I've got enough money for my trip to WJF5 next month, and right now the only thing I'm regularly spending money on is food and gas, and that's no more than $40 a week when I average it out. So I don't really think I need a job that desperately, but a little bit of padding in my bank account won't hurt for after my trip to Vegas.
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-- Music Release --
Well, here it is. The second track I made just for my set at the MCC Halloween party. It went over a HELL of a lot better than I thought it was going to, because I really didn't think this track was finished. I kept feeling like it was missing something, but I couldn't figure out what to save my life, and then all the sudden here I was playing it at the party, and everyone just loved it. I guess it's another example of how the less conscious thought you put into something, the better it will be. I learned that lesson years ago, and I translate it into everything, hell, this rant right here is just pouring out of me, I have not a single bit of doubt as to what I'm typing, though maybe I should. Whatever. Enjoy the new track, because I really don't know how it's so good, but I guess it is.....

DMX vs Linkin Park - X Gon Session

Daily Life:
I'm really not sure what to talk about here today. Nothing exciting really seems to happen anymore with me. The one thing I will say though, is that if there is a lack of excitement, there is definitely no lack of confusion and absolute hectic and frantic happenings. I've just got so much stuff I'm thinking about constantly now. I'm thinking about college, I'm thinking about WJF5 and how I need to practice, I'm thinking about Tech.MCC and what the hell I have to do and what we're going to do, I'm thinking about my money and job status, I'm thinking about JoJ and what I'm going to do next, and about a half dozen other little things. It's times like this I'm actually a bit thankful (well, more than usual) for my ADD, because I can swap between all of them and be thinking about all of them at the same time without needing to try. Though it does feel like everything is spiraling, well, not that's the wrong word. It feel like everything, is, FLASHING around me like I'm the mechanic trying to fix the haunted house ride WHILE it's running. Yeah, that's accurate, I think...

Where was I again? Oh Yes! Spiraling out of control. Well, what else is there to say other than thank god Obama is our new president. And don't go all out and piss all over me because I wanted to vote for him (oh, it turns out that I wasn't on the list at my local voting station, even though I sent in my registration a month and a half in advance. Doesn't matter, Obama won even without my vote for him, so I'm happy.). Though I do agree with his policies and have read his plans from the websites and everywhere, the major reason why I think he's going to be the best president in the past 2 decades is because he's someone that CAN unite the country. He is a president that everyone can LIKE and that everyone will be rallied by. THAT is what we REALLY needed. The American people, while under GW Bush, did not give a crap about what the hell was going on, they were too conflicted about everything, and for the most part, it seemed as if noone was willing to do ANYTHING relating to politics at all except complain (the one thing Bush DOESN'T listen to). With Obama coming in, hopefully people will be rallied by him to try and make use of the government and actually know what the hell is going on as opposed to just sitting back and watching it like the hall of presidents at Disney World. THAT is what I'm hoping for.


Juggle This:
What to talk about here. How about how much my rings hate me? Yeah, that sounds good.

Ok, so I'm competing in ring intermediates at WJF5, I've shoved that down your throat enough, but the big problem is starting to come up. I don't have access to any really superb practice space, especially when it comes down to needing a roof high enough to do 744's with 5 rings under with good lighting that won't burn my eyes, and the added bonus of not having any real time between classes to practice anywhere near as much as I need. I know right now I sound a bit hypocritical since I made an entire episode of JoJ saying how much time you have during the day to practice and how it's easy to make use of that, but I'm not being a hypocrite. My routine is REALLY pushing my abilities to the max right now, and I need to practice it A LOT more than I normally do. So yes, I am still able to practice, but nowhere near the hour SOLID every day that I want in order to better my 5 ring and 4 ring tricks.

Right now, 90% of the tricks in my routine I can hit one out of every three tries, which is exactly what is needed for the WJF competition, but I want to do it better than that. And that's the problem. My normal practice regiment is made so that I simply maintain my abilities and whatever new tricks I happen to learn just happen every once in a while. I've never really bothered spending a HELL of a lot of effort to getting better like I am right now. It's really weird and really tiring. Half the battle I've got right now is that I have to REALLY warm up first, and that's what's killing me in terms of time, because to get warmed up enough to do 5 ring reverse cascades and 4 ring messes, it takes a WHILE.

So I know that at the convention I'll be warmed up like all hell, but I just need to hope that the intermediates comp isn't held early in the morning, because that's the one time of day when I can't juggle for crap.

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