A Master with a Riceball

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Return of the Shredder

It looks like Leonardo is victory-grabbing Donatello's dong and he's quite surprised by this.

Cool that you hung out with Flavio recently. I hope you can fulfill your goal soon. Life gets busy, I hear you on that.

[boyle]

Flavio, great bloke. Had a lot of fun when he visited Aus and I went to Switzerland.

[Asmus]

Thanks for the comments. I like you guys!

CRAZY IDEA

So I have had this crazy idea bouncing around my head for a couple of weeks. It will probably never happen but I will share my thoughts on it anyways.

I think we should buy back the trademark “Hacky Sack”!

A little history lesson: Hacky Sack was invented in 1972 by John Stallberger and Mike Marshall. Marshall died of a heart attack in 1975 and Stallberger continued to push the business. It gained popularity in the early 80s and was registered as a trademark in 1981. In 1983 John Stallbergers and others sold the title to toy producer Wham-O.

“Why should we buy it back?” you might think. Here are my reasons:
- Hacky Sack is a better name than footbag.
- We can control who produces hacky sacks, make sure they are of a certain quality and that they give out the right information
- We could earn money on licensing
- It is a worldwide known brand
- By buying it back and controlling the trademark we could work against the stoner image much more focused.

And now you might think “Why could this not happen?”. Simply because I think it would be waaaay too expensive. However if I won a 100 million dollars I would totally give it an attempt.

You can search up the trademark here: ttp://tmsearch.uspto.gov
Here is Wham-O’s page about Hacky Sack: http://www.wham-o.com/product/Hacky_Sack.html

MIRACULOUS

I like to watch skate videos, not so much because of the actual skating, more because I am interesting in the editing, graphics and so on. I rarely end up watching a full full-length video, but I did with this one.

Pontus Alv / Polar Skate Co.’s In Search Of The Miraculous
https://vimeo.com/119173819

One of the first scene’s is Pontus sitting with the body of his dead grandfather. Who does something like that? The film is about life/death, time and creativity. It is honestly one of the best films (movies included) I have seen in 2016. It touched me deeply and inspired me a lot.

I highly recommend it.

Here is a great interview with Pontus.

[Allan]

CRAZY IDEA
...
I think we should buy back the trademark “Hacky Sack”!

I like this idea. I wonder how much it would actually cost.

[AdAstra]

Personally, I always distance Footbag from Hackeysack purely because of the image. How difficult do you think it'd be to change that? I'm not against it, just asking.

[boyle]

What would the price be? I believe I have read it was sold for 1-1.5 million dollars but I can't remember where I found that.

[Asmus]

Personally, I always distance Footbag from Hackeysack purely because of the image. How difficult do you think it'd be to change that? I'm not against it, just asking.

Not impossible.

Public perception changes naturally over time for all sports. Skateboarding went from being considered a fad, to a DIY business sensation, to almost dying and today to be big business. And the perception of skateboarders has changed from being seen as long haired weed smokers, to destructive drug addicts and adrenaline junkies to well respected athletes and businessmen.

Our problem is that we are known to the public as hacky sackers, but we are so scared of the name (+ it is a trademark), that we have no chance of changing the perception of it.

Another semi-related topic to this is fashion. Skateboard companies doesn’t earn their money on selling boards but on clothes and shoes. This is a field I am sad that footbag hasn’t tried to get into early. Now you might say that short shorts and no shirt is not fashionable and it probably isn’t, but footbaggers could look more fashionable. Sneakers are big business and in fashion (why do you think the Rod Laver was rereleased?) and short shorts and tights are in fashion - Just take a look at Mr. Jeezus.

I like this idea. I wonder how much it would actually cost.

What would the price be? I believe I have read it was sold for 1-1.5 million dollars but I can't remember where I found that.

I don’t know anything about big business or trademarks on a monetary scale but according to this site 1-1.5 million would be 2.5-3.5 million today due to inflation.

I am pretty sure it will be much more than that for a couple of reasons:
- Wham-O would want to get something back for what they have invested in promotion over the years
- With the way Wham-O seems to handle the Hacky Sack brand, I am pretty sure it is a decent Cash cow* for them. You don’t want to sell your cash cows unless you get a lot of money for them.
- I am sure it is much harder to buy something from big business than the original inventor

*Cash cow is business jargon for a business venture that generates a steady return of profits that far exceed the outlay of cash required to acquire or start it.

Please keep the comments and questions coming. I might collect this into an actual article of some kind.



Thursday Session

I had the pleasure of playing footbag yesterday with Power Girl Verena Lenneis and The King Nis Petersen.

It was so great to see Nis back playing. He is still very limited since he has no bounce and almost no bend in his bad leg, but he was able to do some pixie tricks and clippers on both sides.
Verena was playing very well. I especially remember a long run that with Whirr on first try and included both Symple Swirls and Pdx Torque.
I didn’t play very well but I had two links that I liked: Stepping SS Clipper > Blink and Terrage > Pixie Same Symple Swirl.

Playing footbag is fun and it feels like spring is right aorund the corner!

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Thanks for cuing me in, Asmus. This is a really interesting idea that I can get behind 100%. It's crossed my mind before, but I think you may be the first one to state it publicly, which is great because that's how ideas become real.

I can't see us being able to buy back the brand name, unfortunately, unless we have some very generous donations from some very rich motherHUSHYOMOUTH's in or out of our community. However, Maybe we could give ourselves to THEM. I think that could be much easier. I'm sure they'll be happy to take some free promotion. But it would be nice if we can work an exchange that shows them what a good bag looks like.. Or shit, maybe even get them to produce "kick style" hackysacks, like they've been doing, but also "Freestyle Hackysacks".

I think a mod should shift this whole conversation over to the "Projects" sub-forum, because I think it's important enough to deserve it's own thread. I'm interested to see where this goes.

[Asmus]

I think a mod should shift this whole conversation over to the "Projects" sub-forum, because I think it's important enough to deserve it's own thread. I'm interested to see where this goes.

As I am pretty much the only mod in the original sense here, I am the one who would do this. And as I said in the post above I think I will collect all the replies and all my thoughts into something more serious to share wider than the "Projects" forum - so hold your horses young one

[boyle]

Isn't Evan already doing some collaboration with the brand? Interested to see how that goes.

[Asmus]

It has been a good and productive month.

Went to Madrid with my girlfriend. Visited a bunch of art galleries, got buzzed in the sun, went shopping and saw bullfighting. I know it is politically incorrect but I enjoyed it a lot. To those of you rooting for the bull, I can tell that two of the bullfighters also got their asses kicked. I posted some photos from the trip here.

On tuesday I had a couple of beers with Lise. She is going back to California for 2 months. Quite envious. I also bought us tickets for Jurassic 5 and Dilated People in July. I also finished my first short comic. Got some good feedback from my two favorite Danish comic book creators Palle Schmidt and Halfdan Pisket. Very encouraging.

But I once again didn’t play much footbag. Twice to be precise.



As you can see one of those sessions was yesterday and “ooh wee” it was a pleasure!

In attendance: Verena, Kim, Nis, Rasmus, Andreas y Atentamente.

I played with Verena and Kim for a little over an hour. Not many highlights from any of us. My shape needs to get better. I need to work on my consistency but my form felt decent.

It was very fun though.

Worlds / Euros

I got a bonus from work and have put most of it aside to go to Worlds in Portland next year. I still need to save up at least double of what I have now, but it is a good start and a very nice surprise. Very excited about the possibility about finally going to a tournament in God’s own country.

I am feeling a little annoyed that there still isn’t a final location for Euros (it will probably be settled in the coming days) and how little promotion there have been for Worlds. I don’t know who I should be unhappy with, but it is annoying that we put in so much work last year and that the number of attendees finally went up and then things are this slow this year. Seems like a wasted opportunity of getting something good going after some slow years.

I still wanna go to Euros or Worlds this year, but it looks like my job is gonna make us all have our summer holidays in July and that Worlds will be in early August and Euros in June. I am leaning towards Euros since it is less days and it looks like it will be an easier journey.

[Add Block]

I am feeling a little annoyed that there still isn’t a final location for Euros (it will probably be settled in the coming days) and how little promotion there have been for Worlds.

The Facebook page 'IFPA Footbag Worlds 2016' has a very nice introductory video and many pictures containing any needed information.

[Asmus]

Played footbag yesterday. Rumor had it that international playboy, world champion and one of my favorite people Milan Benda would show up, but he didn’t. Instead it was just Nis, Verena and me with Mads Hole showing up, hanging out and juggling some clubs.

Nis and Verena were both tired and not feeling it but I was for once playing pretty well.

Highlights
- Pixie Same Mirage > Reverse Whirl [bsos]
- Symple Swirl [bsos]
- Legbeater [bsos]
- Terrage > PLO > PLO > Terrage > PLO > DATW > PLO > DATW

As I mentioned in my “year preview” post I wanna do a big long video this year and I have finally started to slowly pluck away at it. I have planned out a couple of parts, picked some music, edited a little Juho segment from FFO last year. It is gonna be weird, funny and probably the greatest footbag video in modern times.

I’ve been watching skate videos for inspiration. Here is my favorite at the moment:

[h0ag3yb3atZ]

da danish mamba ya heard.

[Asmus]

da danish mamba ya heard.

Feeling more like the Danish Ric Flair..
Had the pleasure thursday to play with King of the North (Nis), The Chosen One (Mathias Blau) and our very own superheroine Verena.



Was good to play with Young Blauling again. He said he should be back to kicking more again soon, school has just been kicking his butt lately. I didn’t have any highlights. It was cool to see Nis hit Eggbeater after his injury. Verena played very well.

Hope somebody wanna kick today.

Here is a small animation test I did a little while back:

[Allan]

Dope ripstein animation!

[boyle]

That looks great. Any particular player as the inspiration for that?

[Tjuggles]

I think that is Vasek, no? That is what his hand looks like when he does them...

[Asmus]

Thanks guys!

I feel like a lot of people do that. I know Evan Gatesman does it as well. The animation is of Anssi Sundberg and the technique used is my own kinda Rotoscoping.

Played on tuesday with Verena at the spot where we held Worlds. She was playing super well. I was semi-decent. We played for almost an hour.

At one point this young girl came up to us and asked “For how long have you been playing?”. I answered that we have been playing for more than 10 years and asked her how she old she was. She answered “9” and took a few steps and looked like she was thinking about something. A few moments later she asked me “How did you know that Hacky Sack was your destiny?”. Probably the best question I have ever gotten playing footbag and credit to her for almost knowing the correct term. I answered “It is a 2 part-thing. First you find out you like to play and later you find out you also really liked everybody elxse that is playing”.

Here is a great quote from Ernest Hemmingway’s “Death in the Afternoon”. It is about bullfighting but it relates well to calling “THE”:

… there is one thing you can do and that is know what is good and what is bad, to appreciate the new but let nothing confuse your standards. You can continue to attend bullfights even when they are bad; but never applaud what is not good. You should, as a spectator, show your appreciation of the good and valuable work that is essential but not brilliant. You should appreciate the proper working and correct killing of a bull that it is impossible to be brilliant with. A bullfighter will not be better than his audience very long. If they prefer tricks to sincerity they soon get the tricks. If a really good bullfighter is to come and to remain honest, sincere, without tricks and mystifications there must be a nucleus of spectators that he can play for when he comes.

[Tjuggles]

I feel like a lot of people do that. I know Evan Gatesman does it as well. The animation is of Anssi Sundberg...

Yeah, agreed that a lot of people do that. The overall feel seemed like Vasek, but shows what I know!

boob-o-meter.