The Darkshredder's struggle

[Darkshredder]

I was playing the other day and kid walks by with his mom and he goes, "You should check out this guy Peter Irish. He's a really good juggler." his mom explains her son's really into juggling. So I smile and say, "Yeah I've actually met Peter Irish." to which both of them just kind of go ooooh reeeeeally!?

ain't life funny?

so anyway I've been thinking. This blog isn't doing anything. I needed modified a year or two ago after I left Rochester to keep me going with the game but I don't need that now. I'm pretty self-sufficient. I find my own ways of getting motivation. And it's not a very good blog. I'm not all that great a player yet, and although I have a lot to say about the game and life and all that good stuff I don't want to write it here. It's a footblog.

so thanks for readin', ya'll. I'm going to let it drop. I'll instead start using the other things like new combo's and new tricks to list where I"m at so the people who care can still keep track of me on this forum.

and this still doesn't mean I'm going to be on the forum any less. I still have an unhealthy addiction to this place so if you guys send me PMs or whatever I'll get it about 20 minutes after you send it.

edit: hahaha this is great. New page. End post. Page 33. My best friend who has stayed clear of footbag since my first hack sessions, his favorite number is 33. That's just really really strange. I'm going to have to tell him that. Later

[BenRea]

I had a similar experience.

Some of the kids on the novice crew team knew about felix zenger. they aare better at beatboxing but they also footbag every day before practice. one of them has already hit atw, mirage, and pickup. pretty cool, eh?

[Darkshredder]

oh hello.

I just had to vent the fact that I'm loving footbag right now. I feel I'm at the highest point of skill I've ever had. You know those gaps of a few weeks (or so) where some concepts somehow don't seem quite so tight and others don't seem to progress at all? Drills and shred don't really mean so much.

well that's not happening right now for me. Everything I can do clicks when I want it to right now. now that I've jinxed myself, right? Anyway:

Like my sig suggests. I'm really cracking down on quantum more, not because I like the set (I hate it) but it's not quite that mysterious AND I've come to realize it's another thing I'm pretty bothsided with. I don't even consider myself a quantum player but somehow I don't try and shift the bag to set up on my strongside if I want to hit slapdown or tripwalk or something. I just do it. And usually drop. But hey. It feels the same on both, so that's gotta count for something.

atomic. Other than the fact that I can't duck it, I'm very pleased with my progress with atomic. I'm doing smashers and beaters midstring all over the place and NOT at the beginning of the run. I'm even confident enough to maybe attempt a couple reactors here and there.

double downs. Let's just say the long minutes of skooling datw bsos has paid off. Flip DOD and double pickup and switchover. I even don't feel like flip barfly is too far off. Of all the pieces to my puzzle, however, I don't trust this one. You'll still rarely see me throw one down unless I'm warming up or if you challenge me. I'd really like to hit motion and ocean confidently soon. Like the fact that I can pixie whirl like it was my first thing I hit after I could pixie, taking my sweet time on a lot of stuff in footbag is really kind of paying off. A bit more simple skooling with datw and paradons bs will most likely make 4 more tricks come quickly enough.

string length and shuffle has gotten much better. You can thank my flip pixie for finally showing up and doing a good job. I finally don't hate pixie.

hm. Well I'm sure there's more but I suppose that could wait for PMs or another two months from now. But some things I can't wait for? ?
NYCJam
Fallout 3
My new computer
Some income
Consistency with eggbeaters and a higher stepping set
Ambition to stitch another bag

POST! I'll respond and then let this bad boy rot for another two months.

[abstract]

awesome progress pat! it must be nice to be in a situation that requires positive venting. )

we'll have to battle again on the field of shred.

"war never changes."

[Darkshredder]

it would be my honor to get skooled by you and your x1/4 speed slow mo blender stylie. Stay where you are and you'll get plenty of opportunities. Especially if I get a job here Syracuse. Like I said a couple posts up, I plan on doing some more footbag travel once I get some money. I'll be playing a lot with the KFM and the Toronto people if I can.

I go on a rant for quite a while and many people probably don't care (thanks for reading this, anyway ) so I'm just going to run down a list of things hit recently. . Some nice little combos.

diving symp mirage > legbeater > infinity swirl (a rare coin indeed)
symp whirl > helix > soooo hand caught
I'm really close to double spinning clipper - both sides too!
spinning whirl bsos again
symp bubba to inside stall bs
symple near reverse guay from clipper (I think that's redundant, but whatever. . you get the idea)

working on nova again. It's been a while since I've hit it.
filp tapping whirl will be hit
slapping whirl bs will be hit
flip ocean. . . will be slightly attempted. At some point. . .

so it's been weird living in syracuse this summer with all my old friends sticking around. One will be leaving in a week or so to work for GE in Albany. Kind of wish I had the skills to work for Vicarious Visions in Latham. We could've gotten an apartment. Alas, I am liberal arts incarnate and shall never have a skillful, worthwhile career for about a year probably. Right now my job is FINDING a job, which is full-time in itself and I'm not paid.

one of my best friends, a sworn enemy to all that is round and small and can be kicked by the feet, was saying the other day that he's so sick of just waking up and sitting around and eating everything in his fridge waiting for me or someone else to call to do something, which usually entails just suburb kids' stuff - the catch being, of course, that now we're all of the legal drinking age. So between TV, an Italian refrigerator, and shitty cheap beer, he was a bit frustrated. Feels a bit gross and inactive. Completely understandable. Which brings me to reason #3950 why I love footbag. It gets me off my ass. The way I see it, I live very much the way a 13 year old lives. I drink a lot of juice, play lots of video games, and have one or two outdoor activities and keep me in pretty decent shape. Sure, there's beer, but not enough to actually give me a gut. My parents and some family friends still say I could use about 10-15 lbs on me. Meh.

I want to longboard more. My friend who would skate in the park with me is in kingston still doing his thing for a bit longer, gettin' all food poisoned n' stuff. And I think Rea has expressed his slowly declining interest in the game of leirsurely cruising with a longboard. Unfortunately, I lack the HUTSPA to go in to the skatepark alone. It takes a group mentality to roll in there being the only person with a longboard. Much easier to deal with all the nagging questions "CAN I RIDE THAT!?!? WHAT IS THAT!?!?! WEREN"T YOU JUST OUTSIDE PLAYING HACKY SACK!? ?!?!?!" ugh. My ears they hurt.

- - though I COULD just shrug and go in and do it anyway. Still a bit more fun doing it with other longboarders.

anyhow it's been fun having a blog again. So I shall leave this till early september! Oooo september. Scary thought. That's when the cold footbag season is on the horizon.

[bdams19]

just thought id drop in and say your blog is pretty cool. i dont start working full time until august 19th (and i graduated in may), so I too have been living like a 13 year old through playing footbag and video games and eating lots of peanut butter sandwiches and pasta. Life is sweet.

ps. i wanna see you hit barfly>barfly

[Darkshredder]

you just reminded me that I need to go to the store and pick up more peanut butter. Seriously, too. Around 1am this morning I came up from the basement hungry for ACTION (and peanut butter), completely destroyed what remainded of my Sunny D and chocolate milk cartons and moved on to crackers and peanut butter. I realized how little I had so I just had a couple crackers. Gotsta conserve that shizzzz. The butter is worth five in the cart, is what my mommy always says!

oh and barfly b2b is something I've wanted to do before I knew what barfly was. Wanna hear a story? K here goes:

study hall. www.hackrifice.com. Update from Erik saying he hit barfly 3x and him being stoked about it. I'm like woo! go Erik! Uhhhhh. what's barfly. . . . - - - and then go and watch vandal hit montage a few more times and wait for school to end so my friends and I can go outside and do SWEET JESTERS AND SUPER JESTERS in our school uniforms (I don't recommend ever learning footbag in khakis, shirt, tie, and glossy dress shoes. . . not too good)

- end of story -

I'm going to push flip barfly now that you've challenged me, though. You'll see me hit it come NYCSS or may Odin strike me down with his great and thundery fist! Or axe. Or whatever he used. Warhammer? Um. Damn now I want to play God of War somehow. Or I want to have more coffee and go play footbag. I'm done sending my resume places so ALL IS POSSIBLE.

peas

[Darkshredder]

Hitting up the blog a little early because I wanted to mention something.

If you guys are familiar with my blog around last winter-ish/spring you'll remember a Polish guy I met in Ireland and we used to shred on and off with each other. He eventually fell off the radar, as work became top priority alongside getting off "the rock" (he hated Ireland).

Well anyway I thought it was funny driving home from an interview at the Syracuse Sheraton hotel today. I'm going to be a waiter at the restaurant they've got there. And I thought to myself huh. . . shirt and tie and vest uniform. . university restaurant. Dinner hour shift. Full time. Hm. Where have I heard this before? It's the EXACT same situation Dominik was in! It's why he never had the time to shred! He'd have the craziest hours on odd days and then he'd get back to his apartment so late and frustrated with tourists and strange customers that he'd just plop onto his couch with some piss-tasting Polish lager ( ) and play Gears of War or something. He'd get to my 15 voice messages tomorrow asking if he's free to play footbag.

Ha.

Yeah so this is wonderful. I have a job. It might pay relatively well. But it's without a doubt reason 2 why he more or less quit footbag. Reason 1 was probably that he couldn't get flip pixie and we kept getting hassled by street urchens EVERY TIME WE PLAYED. . . he didn't like that.

So where do I stand? My shifts are usually around 4:30 to 11:30, sometimes later. I figure that gives me a bunch of time. I can sleep in all the time, which is nice. And I play footbag for 2 hours at a time usually. It's definitely managable I'd say. But we'll see. Playing 6 days a week on average (I know. Crazy, huh?) may not be too kosher any more. I'll either have to play for shorter amounts of time, and harder, or find some way to pay closer attention to incremented periods of drill and skooling time for concepts, which generally get lost in the "pick up the bag and just go with it" which I'm so prone to do. I mean there's only so much business and hardcore shred you can do in 2 hours. It'd get boring, frankly. I like the game too much to allow that. Maybe a few times - I mean that's how pixie was developed and that's what I'm going to have to do for flip double downs.

I spoke with a guy my dad knows as a consult for job hunting. He said the following:
you're not an engineer
you don't want to teach
you want to be a game designer or a freelance writer
. . . get out of Syracuse.

. So that's what I plan on doing. This thing at the Sheraton is definitely step one. Step one and a half is to go to this bartending school in Liverpool (home of the Rea). Two week program and I'll be certified to bartend. It's a great gateway into pretty much any domain I get myself into at first while I'm still considering if I'm going to go back to school or tackle some other learning/life adventure (Americorps, Peace Corps, Volunteer Internships, etc.)

The most logical thing I see is to move to Albany with a buddy of mine, who is actually on his way to his apartment in less than 15 hours. He's working for GE north of Albany. - - Digges. . he lives in Clifton Park (if you're reading this) I could get a bartending job in Albany really easily. AND, best of all, there's a game developers in Latham called Vicarious Visions. You know them for their work on Spider Man II and Guitar Hero II and III (and On Tour) along with a bunch of shit like Shrek and other cartoon/movie things that no one plays except your little sister. But getting an internship with them would probably be on par with the feeling I'd get if I picked up a bag and hit superfly > ps whirl. . . I don't know. Maybe even better than that.

Yup so that's something new.

uuuuuh. I played today. A couple times. Bawls hot out. Nothing really all that new. Hit a couple flip pdx eggbeaters and worked on flip symple swirling stuff. And I also got a couple blenders that tore my leg in half. Felt real good. I'm glad I can do blenders so well. I was telling Ben the other night that I really don't get that. I can hit symposium whirling ss osis. Seriously. I did. I did it the day I hit symp whirl because Doug said I had a ton of time left when I dexed so I just gave it a go. So uh. Yeah. I'm blender deficient. It's official. I think I'll put it in my sig the next time I think about it.

hey so thanks for reading this ye olde footbaggery types. I'm excited to see a bunch MORE new faces at the NYC SS. I found out that I definitely have money so I'm feeling real good about the trip. Hopefully the carpool idea works out well and Cross, Tank, and Moir can get there safetly.

time to go watch a movie and make some milk shakes.

[The Rhino]

I certainly hope you get flip double downs DOWN. Double down is one of the coolest looking concepts and coolest feeling imo. I wanna see it when you get it, beesauce, hook it up. btb barfly. flip scorpions tale (tail). word.

[BenRea]

Yo i could totally see you as a bartender man, a chill one too. Nice you should do that.

[Asmus]

Good to hear from you buddy.

My best friend is going to take a bartender course in Spain next year.
And I might get a job as a bartender at the bar where my girlfriend also works.

I know how you feel about wanting to get out of the small town you live in. All us creative persons from the outer realms of the world feel that way. Im sure you gonna make it. You got your heart it in.

Up for some chatting this week? I will try to be more frequently on AIM.
(Maybe we should talk some more about the game project we talked about like a month ago? Im still up for doing some illustrations and stuff)

[slapdash21]

there's many cool bars in boston, several of which i frequent, although the cost of living is absolutely silly at this point.

...just sayin

i actually have a few friends that went to bartending school. they liked it (i guess i didnt even need to mention that part...who WOULDNT like bartending school?)

seeyeh next saturday, homie

[Darkshredder]

kewl thanks gents. Yeah Pete, I'd be more than willing to move down to ol' Boston. But like you said the cost of living would just bury me. Maybe later. I'll sit pretty in Albany where I'm within a comfort zone and then perhaps move outward. Canada is also a possibility. Toronto and Montreal are huge gaming centers. And it's Canada. Yeah, I'm one of those Americans who love Canada.

ASMUS! SUP MAN! Yeah PM me or come online. We'll chat. I have some ideas for sketches you could do. We'll get at that.

[Sporatical_Distractions]

Props on symposium blender! That's a really cool trick!

maybe you can do symp whirling ss symp whirl?

[Darkshredder]

I wish I were THAT fast. Maybe once when I'm symp whirling I'll realize one day that the time is right and I'll just have a go at it. Downtime symp whirl scares me. Otherwise I'd be all over that toe symp whirl style we so rarely see. I like it. Buuuut thanks for the props, Kevin! I'm so happy I broke the mental block keeping me from that trick.

now if I can just break that flip dd problem I have.

in other news I'm going to take it real easy this week before NYFA'sSS. The last two weeks I've gone pretty hardcore. I took the day off yesterday to ride around my town on a bike and do errands. I ended up reading for two hours at this bookstore. "Sit Down and Shut Up" - it's a book about zen buddhism but written by a zen master who used to be a part of the american hardcore punk scene back in the 80s. It's pretty sweet. I like the way he writes.

anyway I'll probably hack a bit today. Nothing too special I'm sure. I'll just go downtown or something and fiddle around with triple dexes and maybe I can nail down flip torquescrew a little better.

[bdams19]

so close!

[Darkshredder]

raising a glass of orange juice before I leave to go to my first day of work to the following events/people/randomness of the 2nd Annual NYFA Shred Symposium:

Players:
The Car-
Jorden, Matt, Taylor, and Doug. It was good travelling with you guys. I get a little flustered when trying to move around in a new place, especially one as massive as NYC. So it was good I had people there to pick up after my drops.
The new people-
Mike Toolan, Ken Somolinos, Chris Balch, and a few others whose names I can't remember because I have about 5 minutes to write this. Sorry, guys. But it was a great chance to meet you all for the first time. And of all the jams to go to to meet Ken it HAD to be this one! So exciting to see him accomplish so much.
The mental notes -
- - don't eat two pizzas, a huge slice of buffalo chicken pizza, down all sorts of soda and juices, and expect to play with the likes of Pete Bowler in front of Ken and Matt. I was so psyched to play, too. But hey at least I almost snagged the dex around gyro twirl. Meh.
- - shuffle in front of Drew Martin thanks for the tips on ps whirl, Drew. I'll hit it for you next we meet, k?

And a special thanks to Barrett, Brian, Waylon, Chris, and Vince for putting on and adding some super glue to this event to make it real solid and fun. These NYC jams are by the far my favorite. . . . until Bowler gets his act together and puts on a Boston jam.

some highlights:
void third try in front of Pete.
vortex first try on command from Brian. Long story. But let's just keep it simple at saying my NYFA shirt is a good shred shirt.
symple dyno > barfly > run

some low lights: whaaaat! why would he include lowlights? . . to learn from, bitches. Check it:
dropping over and over on tomahawk, a trick I can almost always nab second or third try strong side.
getting way too defensive at Drew. Sorry, man. Your intentions were good.
not hitting a single flip double down.
not competing. I wasn't ready this time. Next jam I'll compete. I promise.

and I'd just like to say that alongside gaming, footbag, longboarding, and pushing the boundaries between myachi and footbag, I will be taking up chariot horse racing and hardcore earl grey tea drinking (one in the same, really). Yes, I know. It's a dangerous sport, chariot racing. But life is too short to be wasting time trying to work toward gangsta party and nemesis.

so expect some highlights on my racing progress in this blog from now on.

thanks again.

[mtoolan]

hey man it was cool meeting and kicking with you.

i was actually seriously considering giving up footbag to learn how to chariot race like those guys, they seem like they really live life in the fast lane.

[Darkshredder]

I've been chomping at the bit to write in here. I've had to delete about three posts. I have a lot of stuff going on and footbag's caught in the middle. But here's a convenient list of things about what's going on.

Footbag:
sucky past 3 sessions
ocean bs and I'm comfortable to put it midstring on strongside
stepping is improving
quantum is improving
flip atomic is worsening
pixie op symple dyno bs (shrug)
I just got a pretty bad pdx eggbeater injury. You know what those are, I'm sure. But this was so bad I've actually had to ice the inside of my leg. Yeah I was dexing THAT fast. amazing.
toe torques are fairly easy finally.
depressed that I don't have as many close connections to footbag as a lot of people do.
work is pooing all over my shred schedule. I hate working afternoons and nights.

Life in general:
trying to get back into writing.
going back to school (at SU) to get a second degree in creative writing and communications. I'll take the GREs in the fall.
eating habits are worsening because of work being weird. Still haven't figured out a good time to seperate meals and what to have.
I have a swollen gland under my jaw and it's not going down and the doctors don't know why. . . yet. (they're working on it)
dealing with trying to get released from my parents. Sometimes I act like a 15 year old kid who wears Avenged Sevenfold tshirts. I do dumb things to try to avoid them when they're home. When they're home they just make me feel guilty about playing footbag and how I've neglected writing like the way I used to in middle school and junior high.

I do enough of that on my own.

Being an English major meant I spent too much time writing essays and short stories and things for class, on top of a few novels every couple weeks. I wrote, definitely, but not as much. And they never got finished. 30 works-in-progress on this Clstrfck of a laptop.

[inner eye] I'm good at writing and I love it. I suck at footbag but I refuse to quit. [/inner eye]

edit: k so I read this over. I should delete it. I'm not going to. I don't have a journal or a blog anywhere else so this is as good a place as any I guess. It's staying.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Yg-CgIwaHs[/youtube]

[Darkshredder]

edit: awww no one commented on the video above? Matt and Kim are cool. Someone showed me some of their stuff and the first thing I said was "Oh so it's like the White Stripes with ADHD. . . " and my friend laughed. Yup. They make me smile. Very simple music, kinda catchy, and that video is just really happy. If Ben and I ever make signature videos I'll use that song or maybe "5k". That's my favorite song of theirs. . . here. Here's the video.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daeVjbYjeB8[/youtube]

if I'm averaging an hour an a half every session, I need to start to get focused more.

I got in a fun debate the other day at work because the line cooks were grilling me over the fact they don't believe me that I don't smoke weed (I don't. . I've just done it a couple times). My nickname at work is shaggy. If you've ever seen me in person this shouldn't be much of a shocker. I've been likened to shaggy since the 9th grade.

But anyway I get really annoyed at these people who rely on drugs and alcohol just to survive Syracuse. "IT"S SOOO BORING!!! THERE"S NOTHING TO DOOOOO! LET"S GET FUCKIN DESTROYED!" people like that forgot how to be productive and use their imaginations long ago and it's so sad. And after 6 and a half hours of standing around giving people bread and butter dishes I don't have much patience for such things. So we had ourselves a bit of a friendly spat. I say friendly because I was laughing at them most of the time and they couldn't be reasoned with anyway. They're line cooks.

It's fine if people do drugs every so often. Couldn't care less. But it just gets me every time when they say it's because there's nothing to do.

but anyway I'm psyched to play today for some reason. I think I'm going to try to hit locomotion and I want to hit some flip triple dexes. I can't do pixie ss dlo yet on my flip. Never really thought about it because that pixie was always so shotty. But now it's fine. So I'll do that. Won't be too bad I don't think. Flip smog was hit not long ago on a whim. I also need to start stepping out of my blurry whirls and pixie whirls. I think that'll add quite a bit of speed and intensity to my links.