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[2004-05-07]

When you're at a juggling thing [be it a club, a convention, or just a
street performer], if you see something really cool you can walk up to
them and ask them how it's done. And they'll show you.

The great thing about juggling is that it's a skill that takes many many
moons of practice, but most people doing it are always delighted to show
you how it's done. There's no problem with anyone else knowing how to do
something - it's all out there in the open already.


Magicians, on the other hand, tend to be really grumpy. If you ask them
how something's done, it's "magic". While it takes a long time to get
the hang of magic, most of the value in it is the fact that other people
don't know how it's done. The very act of spreading knowlege of how to
do magic devalues it, in their eyes.

If you go to a magic shop, and ask the guy there to show you something
really cool, he'll show you - but then won't tell you how it's done
until you agree to pay for it. And often, it turns out you've paid 50
or 60 bucks for something that's actually a really crappy item.

Go to a juggling shop, and everything there is out in the open for show,
tell, and play.


By way of example, try looking about on the internet for how to do magic
tricks. Then try looking about for how to do some juggling tricks. There's
pretty copious amounts of stuff about juggling, but almost everything
about magic is where you can buy an illusion that does XXXXX.


I like going to juggling clubs and finding people there who know magic
stuff. They're always happy to teach you what they know, if they do
magic. One of my friends works at the Magic Castle [anyone who doesn't
know, it's an exclusive magic club in LA]. I met him at juggling, where
he taught me some basic coin magic.


Funnily enough, once you know what you're looking at, a great many
illusions that you see professionals do are actually pretty obvious how
you do it. At the magic castle, I was watching on guy playing about with
a deck of cards, and although he wasn't deliberately showing me anything,
it was obvious to me what he did a lot of the time, and as such I learnt
a few new things :-)


Interesting aside - I actually got my first ever paying job [using...
*hangs head in shame*... FrontPage], appreciably because of my juggling,
I think. It was about a two hour interview, of which I spent about an
hour and a half teaching one of the guys interviewing me how to do 4
ball mill's [a very, very, cool juggling trick].

Bring on the carnie abuse. I'm used to it.


[2004-05-05]

You know, relationships here are /weird/. At least, most of the ones
that I've seen that in some way originated here are. But since I've
finally been given an incentive to believe that relationships in LA
aren't all fucked-by-design, I decided put some written thought to it.

Note that a lot of this may well be the social circles I travel in. Back
home, I spent time around very, very different people to the punters I
socialise with here.


Back home, I think I have probably a net total of 3 friends that behave
in a manner that one could even remotely conceivably describe as
"slutty". Two of whom are in the same "open relationship" - another
concept that I hadn't really even heard of until I moved here. I've been
cheated on in the past, but that was for a variety of reasons, none of
which would incite me to describe her as a slut.


I moved here, and a few months later I found a new ladyfriend. It hadn't
even occurred to me that I'd need to ask, or that we'd have to have
"the talk", in order for her to /not/ be sleeping with other people.

So, since I never asked, she continued. Only when I asked directly
[sideways queries, it seems, are avoidable] did I find out that she'd
not been with me exclusively. That kinda stung.

I don't mean to imply that there's anything *wrong* with this, /per se/,
just that it's far outside my own realm of experience, and something
that in the past I've considered reprehensible behaviour.


All of this just seems weird. If I'm at the stage where I'm going
to sleep with someone, it simply would never even cross my mind to
sleep with anyone else at the same time. Possibly [demonstrably], I'm
faithful-to-where-its-to-my-decrement. In the circles I've previously
travelled, anything beyond a peck-on-the-cheek with anyone other than
my partner has pretty much qualified as cheating, in my book.


I broke up with this lass I've been chatting about here for a plethora of
reasons, only one of which was my whole trust problem thing [you know -
where I expect someone to be with me exclusively?].

To lend some proverbial hope to this whole situation as I see it, I met
a new lady shortly after.

This new lady simply can't understand, like me, the urge to be with more
than one person at a time. It's rather a refreshing change, especially
given that one of my current women-from-whom-all-advice-falls is your
true raging slut, in every manner possible, and is more than happy to
admit this and offer advice to other budding hopefuls.


Of course, now I must gloat about the new lady, since most of
the people that read this .plan are thoroughly geeky [in the most
positive possible sense of the word], and I just can't resist.

She's a geek. Thoroughly. It's great. She has an XBox and a PS2, her PC
is made by Alienware, and she's pretty much always addicted to some game
or another. Between us, we recently beat Halo Co-Op, and it turns out
we make a pretty formidable team on Mario Kart Double Dash.



Ah. Yes. On completely another topic, I bought myself a GameCube.
Obviously, the normally main reason for choosing a console is the
games. I wanted a system whose games I can /actually/ pick up and put
down [MGS VR Missions with your "Bah, this one doesn't take more than
a few seconds to complete each level then I can put it down", Damn
you]. That's targetted at my playing capabilities [I simply lack the
computer-game-related skills to match most modern games requirements]. And
the GameCube is pretty much it. Big, bright colors. Games where your
sole weapons are a very unthreatening modded super-soaker and your
ability to land on someone's head.

So, as the observant among you have already guessed, I now have a pretty
healthy addiction to Super Mario Sunshine. And every single time I get
a new shine, this comic springs to mind:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2002-08-28
It's like Mario-crack or something. Horrible.

The new lady's response?
"At least I'm addicted to a game for adults"

I also abolutely DIG Mario Kart Double Dash.
And Zelda arrived today.

When this .plan was written: 2004-05-07 20:44:00
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