Muffinman

[Sporatical_Distractions]

Erik, Props on all of your shred hilights. I love reading your blog b/c it's not just footbag. Still fiending to try bubble tea.

Good work on spinning dyno. I find the timing so awkward for that

[Muffinman]

Non footbag stuff...
I'm looking at this site: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/forumdisplay.php?f=42
Man alive I want a decent camcorder! I want to make awesome footbag videos and home make a dolly and everything... This stuff is sooooo exciting!!!
I still have the money that I kind of had accumulated, with which I was planning to buy my GL2 (after browsing forums for a little bit, the GL2 looks so crappy... but I guess I need to work my way up, especially since I don't know anything...), but I need a new computer before a new camcorder is any use, so I think that very soon I will buy a new computer; mine has been broken for about half a year (hence I never finished a bunch of videos, and a bunch of my footage is way outdated...). My brother suggested I get a dual-core processor or something... and he made that sound really appealing. I basically just let him pick out my computer stuff and I pay for it. So... yay. But then I will have to wait a while longer, too, until I can afford my camcorder again... buh. Ha! I'll be able to edit, nevermind watch, HD video...

I feel pretty blah in general, and I was thinking, "Some people actually like their jobs". And so I was thinking about jobs that I would actually enjoy. I think something "art"-related is right out... I wouldn't enjoy that.
I've gone back to librarianism, and now I just really want to somehow make a living as a camera guy... that would just be so incredibly fun!! HOLY!
But yeah. I am going to start looking for a new job, and I am going to look into working in a library, like, Kevin Crowley. I don't think that I will ever go back to school and do my Masters, because it will take at least 4-6 years (2 years of redoing some of my Bachelors, which is such a turnoff), but I was talking to my mom and she was, like, "Well, it would probably be harder to find work as a head librarian anyway", because every library only needs, like, one... or two, or whatever, depending on the size. And so I think that I will look into, like, schooling a year to become a library technician, of which, I guess, a library needs a bajillion... I feel very excited about what I could do right now.

So, yeah, I dunno.
Life update? Blah.
There is other sucky, complex stuff, but I think I will just stew over that in my head, or write about it in my diary. Umm, like, I also considered writing for a living... somehow, I dunno. But I thought that would be fun. I'm not terribly creative, but I like to write.

PS: I've never hit that move. Neat! Your spin makes it look osis..y. Like it's a downtime/midtime "spin". Rad.
PPS: I don't feel as bad about writing non-footbag stuff, after Kevin's comment Thanks Kevin!
PPPS: I'll probably regret having wasted so much space later...
PPPPS: Had an unbelievably sucky session last (see Andrew's blog...), of course, happening to be the one session I finally filmed... But I had one neat highlight, to keep in the spirit: blurry ducking clipper > ripwalk > ripwalk > blurry ducking clipper. I meant to make the ripwalks blurry rev whirls, but...somehow didn't. I hit blurry rev whirl > blurry ducking clipper, though.



Other random stuff:
-Bourne Ultimatum was great
-Had a nice send-off for my brother
-Harry Potter 7 is so boring, like 150 pages in, and I'm finding it hard to keep with it... each chapter just drags on and it feels like a chore.
-I'm even more lonely, now that I'm alone, living with my parents
-Had a really nice internet chat with an old coworker from Toronto. I think I will have another really good friend if I move back.
-my friend started a Facebook account just to log her footbag progress
-Can't wait to hack tomorrow
-Can't wait to stitch bags for people I like
-Feeling really bored and empty in general

[Lackey82]

We miss you Erik.

[Muffinman]

I'm going to be a librarian!
I'm going to go to college for 2 years and get a diploma in Library and Information Technology! So cool! I was looking around for a job in a library, and there are, like, websites just for library job listings. Unfortunately, for every job I saw, you need either this diploma, or the Masters degree. And just like I thought, I think every job required the diploma, and there was, like, one that required the degree. I guess the degree would be overqualified for a ton of available positions.
So, technically, I will be a library technician.
I feel so much less scared of the future, now that I have an idea of what is going to happen, and what I want! Oh yeah, and, so, I haven't looked into it TOO much yet, but it looks like I can probably take the entire program by correspondence (which would probably be better, because a laptop is required for the in-class program, and I'm not sure if that is supplied or not... I'm thinking probably not? But I don't know yet.)
Exciting!
Purpose!


So it's almost 6 in the morning.
I battled with Windows Movie Maker to try to make a really simple video and it took, like, forever because it kept shutting down on me. Bleh. It was taking forever, so I decided to make cookies at 4 in the morning, for some reason. A while ago, my dad mixed fresh flour with some flour that had gone, like, rancid, though... and I think I used the rancid flour..... blech.



I just washed my knee braces, like... for the fourth-ish time ever. You would not believe the colour of my bathtub after that...
In other news, you know you're reading Harry Potter, when a letter at the front door, labelled, "Convocation Office" reads, "Conjuration Office"

[Muffinman]

So, my dad fed those rancid cookies to his staff, and told them that I made them...

I finished #018, and it is hardy! It's off-white pents with alternating light and dark green hexes (double dark green per pent), as per request for Andrew. I worked it in with my hands for, like, 15 minute or so, and I can tell that it won't pop any stitches, and that it can withstand a lot. The light green feels pretty thin. Andrew wanted it 60g and more full than my other bags, so that's what it is. It may be a BIT too full... but I wasn't sure exactly how to make it any less full and still get some seed bead in there... Anyway, I'm excited about stitching. Next I am making my friend a light green and brown bag. Then I want to make myself a brown, yellow, and orange bag, and then I have, like, 5-ish bags that I want to make for other people.

I think I stitch kind of fast now. Probably in total, including tracing and cutting, it takes me 3-4 hours. I think that's pretty good Each pent flower takes me about 15 minutes.



Nightwish, my absolute favourite band in the whole world, is going to be in Minneapolis (closest city to me on their tour) on October 28, 18 days after my birthday (I wonder what Anette sounds like on the pre-Anette songs...)

[BenRea]

Pictures.....PLEASE~!

[xXLoss_of_ControlXx]

Hey Erik, the bubbles/tapioca that you had at worlds, how long did you boil them for? I just made some yesterday and the directions said to boil them for 50 minutes! So i did 45, and they came out soft with a tiny bit of chewy in the center just the way i like them. The store had ones that said they would be done in 15minutes, but it was a real big pack of bubbles.

[hacksterbator]

I finished #018, and it is hardy! It's off-white pents with alternating light and dark green hexes (double dark green per pent), as per request for Andrew.

OH FUCK YEAH!!! can i pick it up tomorrow???

[Muffinman]

Andrew: Sure. Maybe call me ahead of time. I'm pretty far into #019 already too.

Ben: Sony called and my camera is ready to be picked up from repair, so I can take pictures tomorrow (Although, I keep giving bags to people, so... I don't really have too many to take pictures of :p)

Freddy: There are different kinds of tapioca, which confuses the crap outta me. The ones I had at Worlds were "semi-cooked"... I think those are the ones that supposedly take shorter...but I cooked them way longer than regular ones, in Florida, and they were still tough as all get out. I also have some rainbow ones that are supposedly done in 5 minutes, but the company actually called me for some reason, to make sure my order was okay, and the guy said that the 5-minute rainbow semi-cooked bubbles are usually just thrown in with the regulars to look pretty (so that's what I've been doing, and they come out perfect). Umm... I get my tapioca in pretty big bags (like 5.5kg or something?)... you just seal them up and throw them in the freezer, and they will stay good, like, a couple months or longer. This is how I cook the "typical" tapioca:

1) Bring a pot of water to a boil.. (approximately...10 cups?)
2) Add 3/4 cup of white sugar
3) Add desired amount of bubbles (I never figured out a measurement per glass ratio, I just grab and guesstimate, and usually have a good amount...like a small handful for 1-1.5 glasses of tea.), and then turn temperature down to below max (I use a 1-10 element dial. I boil at 10, and then turn down to 7.5ish)
4) Let cook for 15 minutes on this temperature (7.5, or whatever...)
5) Turn temperature down to 4.5; cook for 20 minutes
6) Turn temperature down to 2; cook for 10 minutes
7) Strain, and rinse thoroughly with cold water
8 ) Temporarily store in strainer, in cold water (bubbles will last...a handful of hours before going gross (like, maybe 4-5 max... they say 12, but that's just bollocks.))

[zeroman13]

Mr. Chan, what exactly is Bubble Tea? And how could I go about getting started on trying some?

[CautionFragile]

Bubble Tea fricken rules man

[Muffinman]

Okay!
I went and picked up my camera from the Sony repair place today, so I've got pictures. Keep in mind that These are pretty much from one day, the one day that I decided I would start taking tons of pictures... and then my camera died... so if it's all pictures of one group of people (which...it is)... then there is a reason for that :p
Sometimes I get confused when I read the captions of others' photos. I put my captions below. Some people put them above, and it confuses me, because a lot of the time I will read an entire photo album's worth of photos' captions completely wrong...





So this is that bag of tapioca that I was talking about. It was just a big, dense brick before I broke the vacuum seal.


This is after I made some tea, tonight. Notice the rainbow bubbles that I added.






Here is that bag that I made for Andrew.


And here are some other bags I've recently made. #015, #016, #018, and #019. #015 was the super choice one, #016 popped a bajillion stitches, #018 is the nice one for Andrew, and #019 I did last night, and it's okay. They may not look too great... but I would like feedback on that. I think they play just fine, so maybe I don't care TOO much...






I had decided I would take a ton of photos over the week, at Worlds, and thought that some opening pictures of Ben and I on our trip to Orlando would be neat, so this is us on our final flight from Flint to Orlando. We played pictionary for, like, an hour or more, and it was really fun. I guessed his pretty fast. His very first one, he drew an oil lamp and I guessed Alladin, like, immediately.


Ben played mandolin at our 2-hour delay in, like, Detroit?


Kolo's Footfighter haircut.


Tom..........


Like, half of the pictures that I actually ended up with are of our house. This is our front door.


Front sitting area, where Ben Roscoe practiced his routine for us a million times over.


Stairs.


Walking from parking lot to event site: Dave, Ashley, and Sam.


Entrance to the "Disney Wide World of Sports".


Other hacky sackers arriving at the same time as us: Emily Kulczyk, Fletcher Funk, Chad Devlahovich, and Jorden Moir.


Hacky Sackers, in The Milkhouse (this lameass venue that cost the IPFA $10,000 per day... what the fuck?). Let me see if I can name some people. It's a crappy photo. I have a handful of blurry photos of people, but worse still than this: Chad, Andrew Koller, is that HXC? Tom Mosher, Nathan Pipenberg on the bleachers, there's Oxana in blue shorts, Nick Landes in white tanktop, Dylan Fry, maybe? But I think he's taller... Stephen Barnes... and Red, it looks like.


Henry.


I got Jon to take a picture of me in front of the Disney thingy, and in return I offered to take one of him.


Walked by Kevin, coming into Milkhouse.


Me.


I took another because Jon's was super far away (it's zoomed in, above).


Palm trees!..


Also walked by Andrew Koller (whom I met back in, like, 2003, 0r '04?) and... Wren? I think that is his last name, though. I don't think I actually met him.


Disney World!


This kind of looks like an epic movie walk that should be to some Wu Tang song...
Stefan, John Bagi, Tom, Sam, Pengpeng.


John and Fanny.


I have no idea how this picture got taken, since my hands are full... weeeeird. This me helping Tom cut up my Climas, and Sam looking through his footage to show Tom and Peng the video of John, Jon, Johnny, and me doing the super ducking second-floor-landing trick...


PegLeg + Brinard.
Shortly after this my camera died trying to take a video of Brian doing some yoyo tricks The video didn't even save!!!


Walking to site: Peng, Tom, Sam, Stefan, and John.


Sam, still looking at his footage.


Sam, at Tom's house.


Yay!


Tommy cutting my shoes.


I don't remember taking this one either...


This is us at Tom's, same as all the others, with the same people as every other picture of mine :p This was the day, from my write-up, where Tom thought we were picking him up, and John thought Tom was coming to our house... and we eventually went over there and Tom insisted on cutting my shoes before leaving.


Tom's bag.


Tom's house. It's funny if you could see the look of disgust on his face. I thought about zooming in and putting a little box of his face in the corner, but that would be too much work.




Our dining room


Dining room again.


Our kitchen.


Our living room.


Patio.


Pool.


Oh, last picture already? That's the landing on the second floor of our house, where Johnny stood for the 4-person hacky sack trick Sam filmed.




So, in other news, I played around with my filler last night, and studied it a bit. I discovered that Seed bead is way lighter than I thought it was, and that I've been putting more than I really thought I wanted to into my bags. I never really paid attention to the density comparison between seed bead and steel shot, so I went and weighed 5 grams of seed bead, 5 grams of steel shot, and 5 grams of the lead shot that Eskimo Joe sent me and got some enlightening results. I counted every ball and I will figure out some ratios for filling bags in the future. I will definitely be using less seed bead than I have been, which excites me, because I haven't liked the feel of my seed bead bags as much.
Let's see. Eskimo Joe is so great. I may be getting another 10 lbs of steel shot from him when he comes to Hackrifice, and he said he may bring some lead too, and I think we are going to split some tungsten! WHOA! So yeah. I was going to take a picture of my little filler experiment, but... I didn't. But it came to something, like, 5 grams of each was:
-400 sea beads
-80-some steel shot
-50-some lead shot

Interesting! Fun!

[Zeb Jackson]

awesome pics eric, and your bags are looking so awesome, and only after bag number 20! thats sweet! Hopefully well get to hang some at edmonton next year or something, ill bring my harddrive and we can play some 2 player snes games with my xbox360 controlers, and my computer or something

btw

ffXII rocks so unbelievably! The summons are so cool looking, well done

[max]

Cool picture Erik!

[Muffinman]

I tried to play a bit today.
I have been feeling fine, and haven't really exercised since last session, but also didn't want to hurt myself before the session tomorrow, which I've waited all week for, so I was only going to do some osis stuff. I played, like, maybe 15 minutes, mostly just osis stuff (no impact, right?) and my legs are just beat. My knees hurt a bunch and my shins are just toast. Hacky sack isn't fun anymore, when I can't even just go and play for fun... I'm not even physically capable of it It's sooooo sucky. Like, the worst thing in the world.
I tried playing with my bag, and it was DUMB. I hit 30 osii, which is my record, and got really excited around 24, and was, like, "I just want to get more than 30! Hey -- I'm doing good, maybe I can get even more!" And then dropped right after 30. Osis is very hit-and-miss (is that the expression?) Blech. Frustration. So I switched to my Clavens, and it just STUCK -- so amazing. But I still didn't accomplish anything, by any means. I hit 6 ducking osii, which is probably my record, and only 4 flipside. It was frustrating to give up on that. Then I hit spinning ducking mirage > pixie same clipper [repeat] first try, and that was neat And then I hobbled inside from the pain. I feel really worthless... like the thing I like the most in the world just beats me up... either that or I can't even do it in the first place. I'm going to try to rememeber to do toe taps ALL THE TIME, and see how that helps. It may also be partly due to re-strapping my knee braces a different way...

Umm, yeah, so my bags suck and I don't think I want to make those bags for people that I was going to anymore, which is fine, because I never told them I was going to and it was going to be a surprise. I want to eventually, though. I really want a stitcher to give me a tutorial (found out today that I've been spelling that word wrong for, like, my whole life, because of the confusion with "o" > "ou" words in Canada...). I feel pretty worthless as a stitcher too... like I could be awesome if someone could just show me either how they do it, or what I'm doing wrong... So yeah... I dunno. Kevin Crowley wants a bag, but I don't feel worthy... so I don't know Plus Manna just called me and his bag popped a stitch. BLEEEECCCHHHHHHHH.

In other news, my friend, Nelly, is still stoked on hacky, and she keeps posting in her blog thingy about the new moves she's hitting.
And here are some more pictures:



My bubble tea syrups: Watermelon, green apple, pineapple, and kiwi. You can kind of see the real kiwi pulp sticking to the inside of that jug.

Unopened rainbow bubbles pack, and mango cream powder (yum! So creamy!!)




TV area.

My super-modded XBox. It looks very dusty. I only really use it to watch tv and movies on. I don't play too many games lately.

My modded PS2, and PS2 games, on top of my NES, and then another PSX controller, and a couple XBox controllers, and some NES controllers, and my modded Dreamcast (hey! Where's the top to the spindel?? Konrad!) and Dreamcast games, and two cases of PSX games... and I guess my PSX is in my room, probably, with a whole bag of peripherals... Oh, and there are some NES cartridges on that top shelf, and some dreamcast controllers, and some other games. Some XBox games, though most of what we play is on the XBox harddrive, or on a computer somewhere on the network.

Long network cable, hooked up to XBox, and console switch thingy. I think it's between PS2, NES, DVD player, and XBox...




My bags. There are more than when I posted those other pictures on my bed. So it looks cool, 'cause there are some nice, spent 32s up there.

New bags: Solid Snake (Peng) and Liquid Snake (Clavens).

New shirts I got in the mail today!! (Thank you Alex!) They aren't as small as he suggested, which I suspected, but the neck really is...it rides up and looks kind of weird... I tried to capture that in the photo, but it doesn't seem to look so bad here. Maybe it just dones't look bad? I dunno. Awesome shirt!!!! (I haven't shaved for, like, 2-3 weeks, and that's as long as my facial hair grows... I am experimenting... since I don't have a job...)

Also got Grey. I REALLY wanted green too, but he only had medium. I think I got the last two smalls of red and grey.




This is my little stitching workspace. There's seed bead, and steel shot, and some pre-cut extra panels, and some markers, and facile, and that red notepad is for keeping track of how many bags I've made (tally-mark style), and scissors, which are kind of getting dull, I notice, and black silicon for my Climas, and my scale, and some useless reject bags, and floss, and gather tool, and panels cut for my next bag, and some hacks (not mine), and homemade scissors-sheath, and my filler experiment, and my lighter, and scraps of stuff under my monitor.

A bunch of bags I've made, in order, but missing a bunch, too.

My facile.

Seed bead and steel shot, oh and lead shot in the bag in front, from Eskimo Joe.

My filler experiment: 5 grams of lead shot.

5 grams of steel shot.

5 grams of seed bead.

The patching tape that Andrew gave me... I guess it's not MeFix. This has been working REALLY well for me.

Bags that I was too stupid to make properly :p The purple and pink one was my VERY first attempt at a 32-panel... You can see why I was so frustrated... HAHAHA. I jstu kept adding hexes... for forever. And I was, like, "What am I doing wrooong??"
Oh yeah, and so, closest is one that was practically done, but... I think it popped some stitches, and my stitching was crappy anyway, so I just stopped... The turqoise, yellow, and pink bag is, like, one of my favourite colour schemes so far!! Marita came up with it, because it was for her. I'm going to redo this one soon -- it looks awesome, hey?? And then pink and yellow just looks terrible. Umm... I think I just kept screwing up... I gotta watch my corners and make sure I have enough fabric around the stitch so that it won't just slice right through... that seems to be happening on most of my bags... I will be more careful on the next one!

The scale I got from The Source, thanks to Peng (the same one they have?).

My pile of scraps, since, like, 10 bags-ish ago. I like it.

Okay, here are pictures of my Worlds tshirt now: Mike Hansen, Fletcher Funk, Takumi, Jeremy Mirken

Steve Moir, Ethan Husted, Lon Smith, Jon Schneider, John Bagi, Stefan Audet

Kevin Regamey, Will Digges, Ken Somolinos (in the middle), Jim Penske? Phil Morrison (I think I spell it wrong every time..), Daryl Genz, Mathieu...

Tom Mosher, Gray Chadwick, Shanelle

Ben Roscoe, Stephen Barnes

Luis Lipchuk, Eric Wulff, Jeff Overbo, Chad Devlahovich, Caro, "MD"?, Vasek Klouda, Jacob Wren?, James McTeague, Waylon Lew, Mathieu Gauthier, Zach Jahner (I don't know if I actually met Zach... which is kind of weird)

Taishi (Ishida?), Matt Cross, Andrew Grant, Sam Colclough, Ashley Danowski, Mike..? Tina Aeberli, Sunil Jani, Scott Bevier, Emily Kulczyk, Rishell, Johnny Suderman, Kyle Hewitt

Zach Fourth, Bryin Wylie, Ben Benulis, Andrew Koller?, Will Digges again, Zeb Jackson, Jay Boychuk, Chris Dean

Chris something (Chrissy??), Seb Duchesne, Jorden Moir, Henry Griese, Eric Chang

Cody Rushing, Yoga, Aaron Orton, Paul Agostinelli, Jon Haber, oh and Sunny Genz at the top, there, too.

Yay!

[Darkshredder]

are those Blade of the Immortal mangas!?!?!?

[Muffinman]

Yeah, all of them so far, I think

Shred: September 7th, 2007:
So I tried to play again. Apparently my front yard hurts me, but my backyard doesn't.

-spinning ducking osis X2 [both sides]
-spinning ducking osis, and gyro diving osis [both BSOS]
-alpine merkon > pixie clipper [repeat]
-alpine little apple [both sides] (almost BSOS)
-FLIPSIDE BIG APPLE!!!

The flip big apple just felt AMAZING to have it come up and land in my hand.... like... best feeling EVER What an awesome trick!!!! So happy!
All of these hacky sackers with websites makes me want to buy another domain name, of my name. I think I will wait until I buy my new computer, I want to structure it fun and happy like I am a pro hacky sacker, too. But it will probably be mainly drawings and stuff, which will also motivate me to draw more (Plus, I suck at competition, so I can't look all special.) This could be super fun. I also host and run an Amnesty International website on Hackrifice.

[janis]

-alpine little apple [both sides] (almost BSOS)
-FLIPSIDE BIG APPLE!!!

props!

[PegLegHolly]

awesome pictures, erik!!!

[ashleyd]

great pictures. im going to try and make bubble tea. ive researched a little and read how you make yours. Im pretty excited about it.

I love how organized you are.