Muffinman

[sen]

OK, yup - 'audible mechanical failure sounds' generally means the platters have been scratched or head is stuck. It then becomes a very expensive repair.

Edit: Oh Noe. Top post.

[Muffinman]

Thanks for confirming that the cost is pretty normal, Tony.
Sucks, but, eh. I can afford it if I have to.
One of my AC units just died too, so have to pay another $500-ish today on that.



20x20 session #48:
Pretty okay session yesterday. Was struggling to balance creativity and run length and also difficulty. So lagged behind on the 20s for the first half of the session. Not many super highlights, but played pretty well.
-blurry drifter BSOS and almost vortex BSOS same run
-a run with vortex, stepping whip, spinning ducking clipper > spinning whip, and mobius all BSOS?

Meant to try paradon swirls and flurries today, but it was a bigger circle than usual and turns werent as frequent, so I played it a bit more safe. I dunno what else...

[Muffinman]

Decided to film today’s session and play harder/funner instead of doing 20x20 again. Had some good runs, mostly shorter
More intense combos. Biggest highlight was superfly BSOS first try! Felt so good. Managed blurriest BSOS same run too I think Ive only hit superfly once each side in one video ever. Also torch-r-rack (didnt get that one today though).

Not sure what else. Oh, got symp whip x3 > ps whip x3 repeat. Done that before but I dont think on video. Got big apple BS. Not sure what else. Oh scorpion’s tail BSOS and some other things in that run? Really wanna diversify my doubledown game, since theyre pretty solid for me. Oh, I opened a run with stepping pickup > paradon > blurry pickup > paradon [repeat]

[Muffinman]

20x20 session #49:
So stupid humid out. We basically ended the session becauseof sweat moreso than because of being tired! So I tried to pump out the 20s as quick as possible! I had a drilly 100... something like symp mirage > near butterfly x10 > whip > butterfly x10 > ducking clipper x20 > spinning clipper > ducking clipper x10 > gyro clipper x20 > ps whip > symp whip > ps whip > symp whip rolled off (so 103)

-scorpion’s tail BSOS, dropped mobius BSOS
-gyro dlo, step whip, spin duck clip > spinning whip all BSOS
-spinning osis > pdx blender BSOS

Nothing much else of note. Just contacts and sweat. Played pretty well overall. Really want that flurry > pixie paradon > blurriest repeat drill, but need to work on barrages and flurries. Could prolly do it with barrage instead of flurry at this point, but even BSOSing flurry is an accomplishment for me, so not quite close to the drill. Plus wanna reserve high impact tricks for when we play on the wooden boardwalk instead of cement.

[C-Fan]

Plus wanna reserve high impact tricks for when we play on the wooden boardwalk instead of cement.

That's called playing smart instead of playing hard. Nice.

Given how good you are at whip, how about some whipping rakes? Always enjoyed both doing and seeing that trick.

[Muffinman]

Thanks Ken.
Yeah, I've been injured enough that I'm sometimes smart enough to avoid doing things that will hurt me more than's necessary... I think I only ever did whipping rakes for the Level 3 badge video. I dunno, I'm not a huge fan of tricks that don't flow well with typical shred. I don't mind watching others do them if they do them fun and creatively though. But I think I also struggle enough to remember to do the tricks that I know and can do that adding even more would just confuse me. Haha




20x20 session #50:
So I didn't even remember that this was session #50, but I was at work trying to think of fun things that I could do this session and thought, "I want to do more fogs and bedwetters, just in every day shred." So I decided that I would try to do at least one triple dex (uptime to dual dex) every 20. So fog, bedwetter, wetdream, haze, smog, pigbeater, pixie near DLO, and pixie near egg. Halfway through I played so hard that I made myself nauseous. Thankfully Alex had gravol on him and I was able to push through and hit the 20! There were a handful of 40s, which was super tough, since it mostly meant hitting a triple after 20 contacts. I think I did bedwetter, pigbeater, and maybe haze as BSOS 40s? I was impressed at getting the second pigbeater in after 20-ish contacts. I never do that trick!

I also really wanted to do scorpion's tail x2 both sides today, but I think I need to practice the trick alone first. Probably double BSOS it first too. I did foot spinning whip > scorpion's tail BSOS on my first try.

What else. took a LOT of breaks because of the shred-induced nausea. Triples take sooo much more energy than, say, even double down triples. Must be a great workout, but I also want to be careful because Mike and I are shredding Friday and then Tom Mosher and I are aiming for a session on Saturday night, so I don't want to hurt myself before then. He's hoping for regular sessions with me going forward, but he's a family man, so his schedule isn't all that flexible. But I'm looking forward to seeing him

Oh yeah, I also beat some personal records:
-7x gyro diving clipper first try. Could probably do at least 10? Probably more
-6x ducking pickup? Is that a personal record? Only gave a couple tries to that. Could probably do 20ish if I tried more
Really wanted to break some personal records, but I didn't wanna break the flow and not pay attention to Mike by going through my spreadsheet on my phone during his turn. I'll come better prepared next session. Records are fun

Oh and I did double spinning clipper BSOS first try for the first time in quite a few sessions I think. Felt good.



Also, some good/bad news is that a part of the harddrive I was trying to recover broke, and in order to continue with attempting to recover my data they would need to buy an entire replica of that harddrive just for the part, which would cost an additional $150 up front on top of the $750, even if they still can't recover all of my data. So at that point I was just kinda like... No, that's a lot of money. I could almost buy a whole new laptop for that. And I may still not get my data back... So I will just make my video at low quality by ripping my own YouTube clips. Ah well. Save myself a lot of money. Sucks but is also good. That money can go toward an all-inclusive resort vacation early next year Or my potential family trip to Denmark this winter (looking like mid-end of November maybe...)

Anyway, really fun session, and I think it helped dial those tricks that I want to do more of. Especially since I not only had to do them for every 20, but for almost every run attempt up until I finished the 20 too! I did a lot of triple dexes today!

[Muffinman]

20x20 session #51:
Bad backup rain location = bad session, so 20s were super low level tricks. Did a few new minor records though:
-diving clipper 20 each side (not record for good side, but my documented record)
-diving legover 5 each side
-stepping far clipper 11
-symp mirage 12 good, 5 flip
-diving butterfly 7 each side (BSOS actually)
-ducking osis 6 flip (beat record by 1 — i actually find this easier than just far osis...)
-dyno 4

Was in pain in quite a few places and playing conditions were terrible, so nothing special. I realized that this was the same surface that i twisted my ankle on a few months back, forcing me to take a few months off and do physio.

[Muffinman]

Had a late-night hang-out with Tom Mosher last night. He puts his kids to bed at 9 so he's only free after 9:30 on any given day, so we met up around then, hung out while he cleaned up after his kids, and just caught up and chatted, since it'd been forever. We hung out with his wife Marni for a while too. We played footbag for like 20-30 minutes, first in some docking bay we broke into, and then just out on the main street after we got scared off by some people who were supposed to be there. Had lots of fun, and we also played some 2-square and table tennis on an outdoor table in the park until about 1 AM. Tons of fun. I hope we make it a regular thing like he wants. It's just tough for parents to commit to things I'm sure. Here's a video from 5 minutes of footage in each spot:

[C-Fan]

That's cool you're documenting your records. I did that like 10 years ago when I was in grad school, and it's neat to be able to look at that snapshot. I used to pride myself on my footbag memory, but in recent years I've really learned to not trust it. Being able to use YouTube or my old blog entries to confirm records/events/combos has definitely helped.

It's also super cool you are flexible with your schedule and willing to work around Tom's routine to make a shred happen. I'm sure he really appreciates it.

[boyle]

As a parent and also someone that kicks late at night, it's awesome to see you taking the time to go in with Tom's schedule. I haven't watched that video yet, but I'm sure it's cool. He's a guy I'd love to meet sometime.

[Muffinman]

Thanks guys. Yeah, we'll see how potential future sessions go.
Had a session yesterday but played really, really poorly; a couple highlights though:
-ducking clipper > spinning clipper > ducking clipper > gyro clipper [repeat x23-ish], so about 90 contacts
-ended on vortex BSOS, stepping whip BSOS, and dropped on the gyro DLO BSOS

Curiously I have a pretty high success rate with vortex, even though I can't do drifters.
Hopefully this bad session got all of the bad shred out of my system before our big jam on Saturday with the following people:
-Tom Mosher and family
-Joshua Goodwin and family
-Derrick Ogden and family
-Dante Diotallevi
-Cassy and Derek
-JJ
-New Adam
-me, Alex, and Mike

11 footbaggers -- not bad!

[C-Fan]

That sounds like it's gonna be an awesome session! 11 players is more than they get at some tournaments these days. Maybe you could run Circle comp and consider it the Canadian Open. Only half joking there.

Not joking though that you should totally film it!

[Muffinman]

FAT FAMILY ISLAND HANGOUT
Tons of fun on the Island on Saturday. Only 2 people bailed -- Derrick Ogden and Joshua Goodwin.
Dante was playing as expected. I think one run he had skullsmasher BSOS. He hit plasticman 2 first try. Unsure what else, but he's such a well-rounded player, who can do every concept, and really, really well! I think he could be BAP material. Certainly moreso than the 2 inductions from this year's Worlds. He also hit skullsmasher to fusion in one run.

Tom seemed to be playing much better than our last session, and had some pretty decent runs.

Derek was throwing consistent 30+ contact runs of toe shuffle... Such consistency and intensity! Wow. No wonder he has back issues!

Cassy was pretty consistently laying 20-ish contact runs. Super smooth style as always.

I started out super strong with a bunch of 50+ runs just after my warm-up, and then had some solid higher intensity runs, one with blurry whip > stepping whip [repeat] > ps whip > spinning whip [repeat] midstring, after something like little apple BSOS, or something? Also had something like blurriest BSOS at the end of the run too... After that point is when I broke out the camera to film as much as I could, though angles were tough because I was just doing tripod filming and at some points tried to catch both circles at once... I doubt the footage turned out well especially since people were probably standing in the way for most of it. Ah well. No idea when I'll get around to watching it all anyway. All that I was conscious of getting on film was Dante's plasticman 2 and I think I got the atomic ducking. I think I was playing pretty weak by that point.

Everyone else seemed to be having lots of fun too.
Alex's girlfriend, Ally was there, though she only played for like 2 minutes, and Tom's wife and kids were there. His youngest kept running up to him and grabbing onto his leg while he was trying to play. Lol. Super cute. And then he also did some dexes while holding him. I could see how hard it was for him to play because his kids both kept running up to him in the middle of the circle. Well, we'll see how future sessions with him go

We all went for Greek food after, and that was perfect and made us all very happy.



CHILLING WITH DANTE
Dante stayed at my place since he was seeing another friend on Sunday, and that was really fun. I forgot how much we have in common. He asked at one point what games I'm playing and I said Fallout 4 pretty emphatically, and then he said that's what he was playing too, and 4 times as many hours as me! He was all excited to see my build since I was talking about how much I min-maxed it and how I could 1-shot every enemy in the game, including bosses. So we played around with that a bit.

Then he wanted to see my Switch, and he was interested in Breath of the Wild, and then saw that I have Hollowknight, which I just recently beat. And we took turns fighting the final boss for a while, for which he got really excited and wanted to buy the game just so he could keep doing that. We talked about Cuphead, since he saw the figure that my girlfriend got me.

And then we were chatting about Dark Souls since I showed him my miniatures from the board game and he was asking all of these questions about the game progression and boss orders and I was telling him about which bosses were mandatory and surprisingly which you could skip like the very first boss. And he asked if you could enter that boss fight from behind where you normally would, so we started a playthrough where that was our main objective, to see if you could do that. You can't, as it turns out. But that was super fun. We had a good time and it was nice chilling with someone that has the exact taste in games as me. So rare!

[Muffinman]

20x20 session #52:
Just a duo session with Mike today.
Man, I just don't have much stamina. You'd think focusing on run length EVERY SINGLE SESSION would help with that... doesn't seem to be the case. Maybe it's just me getting old. Sucks. Maybe it's the heat and humidity this summer too though. It's been consistently muggy. Unbearably so most days. I got a new AC unit a couple months ago and on a lot of days it takes in 10 LITRES of water! In one day. Nuts.

Anyway:
-scorpion's tail double BSOS (first try!) -- I should've kept going and tried for triple, but just hand caught after the double.
-footed vortex x2 both sides (while my bad drifter hip doesn't hurt for a single vortex, the second one definitely tweaks it...
-21 blurry clippers (a new record for my list) -- surprisingly much harder than ripwalk!! Though I think I just went into a run after the 21
-footed mobius > rev tomahawk BSOS, which was neat -- not as hard as I thought it'd be, considering all I usually ever do out of mobius is a BOP
-did some blazing, and flip was working, which is nice since it wasn't working the last bunch of times I tried

I think that's about it.
Another duo session lined up tomorrow with Alex this time. I hope I can do 2 days inna row!

[Muffinman]

20x20 session #53:
Duo session with Alex. Body feels surprisingly great for 2 days in a row, on concrete no less! What did I do? Pdx torque BSOS and dropped the BSOS mobius same run. Swivel bs for maybe the first time. Some blazing again. Bling blang > ripwalk repeat — nothing super special. Maybe that’s mostly it?

[Muffinman]

20x20 session #54:
Oh, I wasn't gonna actually write anything since it was a bad session, but I did have a run with smoke, blurry drifter, and vortex in one try. I didn't bother trying to BSOS because drifter on my good side hurts. But I did foot the BSOS vortex. Could probably BSOS it all, but really wanna be careful about that hip.

[Muffinman]

So I just had my first solo session in... a year? 3 years? Because I was injured for about 2 years before I came back most recently. I'll have to go back in my blog to see for sure, but it's been a long time! Man, I was so stoked all week for this, to be able to try some cool stuff on camera, which is more difficult to do in a circle, which is why my circle videos I just stick to the same old stuff that I'm more comfortable with.

I hit some super cool stuff that I was really happy with!
The theme was kind of, just missing a lot of things I was trying to get. My body held up better than expected, though! It was moreso that I ran out of time because it was getting dark out and I knew I could only play so long before getting a huge cramp or legs giving way.

Some things I'll try to recap:
-almost blurriest > superfly BSOS! This is the first time hitting superfly out of something too! I did step out of good side superfly a few times, trying superfly > blurriest, but I need to work on my superfly more. It's still a trick I've only barely hit ever, like under 10 times each side? Then torch-r-rack shouldn't be too tough, since I remember finding it easier than just straight-up superfly when I first hit both tricks
-almost big apple BSOS (figured out my trick for flip big apple -- I always set outward, so focusing on setting straight up helps a ton!!)
-pdx torque and mobius both BSOS I think?
-spinning ducking osis > pdx blender BSOS?
-footed rev maelstrom > ripwalk repeat?
-a run with diving symp mirage > butt > ducking ps mirage > butt repeat and then mobius BSOS?
-a run with scorpion BSOS and something else good in that run?
-tapping whip > pdx mirage > rev reactor > pdx mirage repeat almost, both sides...another thing I just kept missing the last contact on
-a run with fusion BSOS?
-flurry combos BS?
-a run with gyro diving butterfly > ducking clipper > spinning ducking butterfly > ducking clipper repeat. I think that run had some other neat stuff in it too? Unsure if I've ever done this drill
-kept struggling to get pixie paradon > blurriest BSOS.. I'm not sure if I ever did get it... really need to practice that more. Isn't really too hard for me, I think I just dont do pixie paradon enough is all
-oh yeah, also missed the last contact or 2 on blurrier > ripwalk repeat > blurriest > sidewalk repeat I think I need to practice this drill to get better at blurriest > blurrier repeat, which I've only done.. once?
-I think I kept missing rev whirlygig > rev whirlwind BSOS too... wanted to get the drill, but not this time.
-oh, bling blang > blurry whip repeat I think? also the same but with ripwalk? meant to do blaze > pixie whip repeat, but I think I just forgot

Hmm.. I tried to just get more variety and tricks that I do a lot less in usual circle shred and in my more recent videos. Still always banking on blurry and stepping whips as my go to "hard tricks"... Oh, totally forgot to do any drifters.

Felt sooo good after to get some good and varied stuff on video, and to just play solo. I found this perfect spot for shred. A perfectly-sized square of brand new concrete, with brand new soil around it in the middle of a park, on the lakefront, beach, and right by the bike path and everything. Super nice. So excited to make the video!



EDIT:
Did the video thing. I'm a little less happy with it seeing it after the fact, lol. I see so many gaps in my game from not filming as regularly and not playing solo in I can't even remember how long. Always osising on just one side, always ripwalking on just one side, always just osis > butterfly, or ducking clipper... lack of interesting lower-difficulty tricks... But also it looks like potentially more solo sessions on the horizon as Mike and Alex may only be able to commit to 1 session per week going forward instead of 2. That would mean more time to actually train and film, which would be a nice change of pace It also felt like more of a workout doing it solo, since I really amped up the intensity.

[Muffinman]

FOOTBAG COMMERCIAL AUDITION
Yesterday I did an audition for a healthy living commercial that called for a hacky sack player. The casting call lady reached out to me directly as well as to our FAT Facebook group. I applied and then when I saw that some friends had also shown interest, checked in with them and wanted one of them to get it instead. It pays $700 for a day of shooting. I knew that Derek Littlefield and Camille were interested, Derek having to drive 3 hours one way to come down for it. So I pulled my name, but then because I had such a strong resume (included video, my Footbag Foundations website, how I've taught demos, workshops, etc) the casting call lady started sending me a ton of texts literally begging me to reconsider and come. She claimed that everyone else for the other roles were all white and that they wanted some ethnicity in there. So I got feedback from the GF and another footbag friend on what I should do, because I just wanted to ensure that a footbagger got the role rather than some rando. And if everyone else was white and they were looking for some diversity, then maybe I should put my name back in. That's a really unnecessarily long story of leading up to the audition.

So then I agreed to show up, and when I got there it was a legit casting agency with all of these parents with their kids waiting outside audition rooms like in the movies/TV. I did some paperwork and got my picture taken. I happened to see Nathan Deschamps (http://www.nathanfootbag.com/) there, whom I didn't know was planning to audition. We chatted for a little, and caught up, since I hadn't seen him in probably 5-ish years. He did his audition just before me and seemed a bit awkward, and then when he exited the room, he just kinda waved and left without a word.

When it was my turn to do the audition, they called me in, and there was a panel of 4-5 people and a camera operator. I put my glasses down and stood at the front with all the lights on me. They asked me to say my name into the camera and then said I could do my thing. I was really impressed with myself that I went entirely dropless, which I never thought I'd do, and in retrospect makes me respect people who do routines even more. I was super nervous leading up to the audition, though once I was actually in it I felt pretty good. I just started with some kicks, then toe stalls, then clippers, then ducking clippers, then ducking clipper > spinning clipper > ducking clipper > gyro clipper repeat > some BOPs, then a couple ripwalks. And then I asked if they wanted me to keep going, and they seemed impressed and were, like, "No, we've seen enough." Then they asked a bunch of questions about shoes and wardrobe (since there will be a wardrobe fitting session for whomever they select). There was also a minor wordless acting part they asked me to do, which was kinda weird.

Anyway, it was an interesting experience. Hung out with Camille after, which was nice too, since I hadn't seen her in forever. It would be neat to get $700 for playing a little hack.



10 FEARLESS GOAL
On an unrelated note, I thought of probably the most feasible 10 fearless for me the other day, and I want to spend an entire solo session working on it so that I can finally say I've done 10 fearless, after playing for almost 20 years: gyro diving butterfly > spinning ducking butterfly [repeat] > spinning ducking mirage > diving symp whip [repeat] > spinning ducking osis x2 (and potentially adding a couple rev mullets after if it feels right).

[Tripp]

Awesome read! I hope you get both the role and the 10 fearless. Nice!

[boyle]

Cool experience, good luck getting the gig! Good luck also for 10 fearless. Toe diving symp whip sounds pretty hard right in the middle but I guess that trick is pretty easy for you.