Muffinman

[C-Fan]

Some random hacky facts about me:
â–ºI first saw freestyle by Chad in "She's All That" in theatres
â–ºWhen I was called by Joel to come to my very first Hackrifice jam I didn't know what "Around the World" was
â–ºPossibly my first footbag video to watch was Ryan's Worlds '97 routine (I would love to do a routine to SEXXY!)
â–ºMy first 5 add trick was ducking PS mirage
â–ºMy first 4 add trick was ducking butterfly
â–ºMy first 6 add trick was probably mullet
â–ºMy first 7 add trick was reverse montage rake (lame)
â–ºBack when I was tiltless I didn't understand the difference between reverse whirl and butterfly and did butterflies thinking they were reverse whirls
â–ºI invented terraging mirage and named it "entre" (back in like 2002-ish)
â–ºI named Blubberman
â–ºI named wonton
â–ºI think I was the first to duck quantum (2001/2-ish?)
â–ºI've only been to about 9 tournaments outside of Hackrifice (most of which were really small: Regina (my first non-Hackrifice tournament, Mark Leeman and I were the only freestylers other than Mike Wiwchar, the host), Shred Zero, Calgary (4 years inna row), CSS4, ShrEdmonton '07, Worlds '07, and Worlds '08. I'm pretty sure that's all)
â–ºI was part of a 10-20-some community forum years before Modified back when the main form of communication was the .org mailing list (a forum that evolved into Modified)
â–ºI started as a toe shuffle player and only learned spinning both sides well and lots of ducking after I took my first half-year off due to my first initial injury in 2004 (I was told that Jan Zimmerman also gained his smooth style from injury)
â–ºMy first BAPster to meet was the Enlightener on his way back to Chicago after Worlds '01 in Vancouver
â–ºMy first out-of-town footbaggers to meet (and quite randomly!) were Zeke Ibardaloza and Dan Klokow of the CIC in, like, 1998-ish (I hit mirage twice in a row that day for the first time!) on Navy Pier in Chicago (on a high school band trip)
â–ºI've only played footbag in about 2 pairs of shoes since I started footbag 10-ish years ago (I say 2-ish 'cause I only got my red Lavers just after I was initially injured, and once I started really playing again I soon after bought Climas)
â–ºI can't regular swirl (though I had one random session where I hit stuff like, riptide both sides, far swirls both sides, blurry reverse whirling swirl, reverse whirling swirl both sides, etc)
â–ºI've only ever done 4 fearless (blurry whirl > blurry whirl > PS whirl > PS whirl (It's a lot harder with reverse whirls...))
â–ºI've only ever done 2 beastly. My first combo was whirlygig > mullet (dropped on the other mullet) many years ago. I think the only other combo was probably blurry reverse mullet > reverse montage (dropped on spinning ducking DLO...)
â–ºI only got good at DLOs 'cause, I think at Shred Zero '03 I had a run with lots of them (in the Calgary airport) and I think, actually, Brian Johnson mentioned something about it. From then on I did lots of DLOs.
â–ºOne of my favourite players, Eli Piltz, came down from Montreal to jam with me on my birthday in Toronto back in 2004-ish and gave me a Flipsider shirt as a present
â–ºI've met Ricky Moran (one of my other favourites), but only when he was tiltless, at CSS4 in 2003/4.
â–ºI've never met James Risden. The one year I was finally about to, Derek and I had planned to Greyhound down to Minneapolis where he was meeting with and jamming with the Cloud9 crew (Juan, Bijan, Cole, etc) and some CIC (Eric and Tim?). It was my dream. The only Greyhound to get there and back with enough time for us to not miss school (or whatever we were doing at the time) would have only given us 12 hours total in Minneapolis. I had also just applied to work at the local comic shop, which at the time was kind of my dream job (I like comics). The owner was interested in me (after answering a lot of comic trivia in my interview and telling him who my favourite artists are ) and asked if I could start on a certain day... the day that we were supposed to meet James. I had to turn down my dream job (conflict of dreams!!) and it turned out that the Greyhound was canceled and we weren't about to go anyway!
â–ºI remember when coloured Lavers first came out. Rob Fuller came and stayed in Winnipeg for a week and we both stayed at Derek's house and played footbag all the time. He had just come up North from visiting his dad in Colorado and Freedom (at the time "Revolution Footbags"?), or rather The Boulder Blades, had the first coloured Lavers of any footbaggers (was what I heard). I think it was red, blue, and maybe black? No, grey I think. Maybe grey and black.
â–ºI've made, like, close to 300 footbag videos.
â–ºI have a lot of footbag videos (80 gigs-ish from the internet, 30-ish VHS tapes, and 10-ish DVDs)
â–ºI have "lots" of footbags (not compared to lots of people though) -- like 100-ish
â–ºI basically quit stitching because of unbearable wrist and finger pain I've only made, like, 60-something, I think.
â–ºI'm riddled with injury: torn hip flexor (or something (my first major injury which I thought was a pulled groin (and got made fun of a lot resultantly (from PS whirls and flip atomic -- I can't really do drifters, atomic, nuclear, ducking/spinning DLOs because of this))); petallo femoral syndrome (an imbalance in my quad muscles which pulls my kneecap outward and grinds away when I bend my leg (hence the knee braces)); shin splints (like you wouldn't believe! I've had them before, but this is my main injury right now which prevents me from playing/playing hard)
â–ºI have a run in Just Shred 2: Like Whoa
â–ºUntil a week ago-ish, I'd never hit a 7 add.
â–ºI've never hit a quad dex (though, actually maybe sailing same DLO? Maybe not...) I guess no regular swirls and no double dex sets make it difficult... maybe I could try sailing same DLO or double down just to say I've done one

I found that really interesting; thanks for writing that up. In the NBA, there is a draft lottery every year where teams choose new players. Oftentimes, players from the same draft will be compared, since they've been in the league the same number of years. Like, Kobe and Iverson (96), or LeBron and Wade/Carmelo (03), or even Barkley/Jordan (84). Due to the nature of footbag though, I don't feel there are many players from our class (97/98) who are still active and playing, much less playing near the peak of their game. For this reason I feel a bit of a kinship with you, since you are "from the same generation/class" as me. It's also interesting to me to see the differences in our careers. I think I'll do a similar write up today.

I also completely feel you on the whole: "fortunate to be able to play footbag" tip.

[Muffinman]

Thanks guys.
Ken: It's an honour to be compared to you [by yourself]. I've always kind of seen myself as just some kid who took, like, 7 years to accomplish anything in the sport, and you kind of more as a legend from even pre-2000. I hope we get to play more in the future. Hopefully I will start to make it to more tournaments. (Also, I liked your random facts thing.)
Brian: Thanks. It's so underrated

I'm anticipating Hackrifice like crazy.
I kinda wanted to do a routine, but never got around to starting one. Maybe for next year. I've never done a routine (not even for fun) before. I pick people up tomorrow from the airport all day. Today I should be cleaning like mad. I should really get on that. I also wanna finish my Worlds write-up so that I don't end up with Hackrifice write-up on top of it. I'm also excited to see the magazine article that features Manna but associates my name with his picture

[Rieferman]

I saw Ken's post in his blog with his footbag history, and he mentioned that he was inspired to write that post after reading yours. I just finally got a chance to read yours. Really enjoyed that, thanks for putting it all down on "paper"!

[Muffinman]

Hackrifice is a blast so far.
I'm so tired.

Some highlights of mine were 56 diving clippers > handcatch (which I THOUGHT was one over the world record. But no. Apparently not. Now one behind.)
-mobius > mobius
-twirl > mobius
-little apple > tripwalk BSOS

Overall I played pretty bad, which was kinda weird. I had a really fun game of challenge with Manna. Man, he is so RIGHT at my level for single big tricks. Ouch. I owned him on a few tricks inna row though that he tried first on my first try. So there. Ugh, why are we shredding two times every day? So beat.

[Muffinman]

HACKRIFICE 10
September 19-23, 2008

Fuck.
Everyone else has said it, and I've said it before, but it's just like Byrin said: Hackrifice 10 was on par with Worlds '07 as the best time of my entire life. It was PERFECT. 100 thanks to Andrew Taylor Grant for being the most selfless, generous, coordinated tournament organizer. Everything was Andrew. Make that a million thanks. What a guy!

I'd love to do an in-depth write-up, but I didn't take notes. I was too bust having fun and PLAYING FOOTBAG! So much footbag. This is likely the most dense footbag I have ever played. Like, 2 sessions every single day-ish. Wow! I'll start with some highlights:

Hottubbing at Derek's Sadly for the people who only stayed for the weekend, my hands-down favourite times at Hackrifice 10 happened after the fact on Monday and Tuesday. On Monday morning I drove Kevin Regamey and Waylon to the airport at 6. We all stayed up and waited, then went to bed and woke up late. Like 12-ish. Man, so little sleep all weekend. We went to Coronation Park (quite late) and met Derek, Joel, and Michelle for some hack fun. They played for a bit. I smoked a bit with Andrew and Camille which was kinda nice. Took some pictures. Then I had to drive Andrew and Jeff to the airport 45 minutes later, for 4, I think? On the way back I had planned to pick up a phone card to call Marita, so I did, though had some troubles, and I ended up I guess being gone from the park for, like, 3 hours, which I kinda of felt bad about. Marita and I pretty much broke up, though, so I spent about an hour crying and hurting in the heart. That was harsh and I plan to get back to that in a bit. Then I went and met the guys, plus Manna, at a burger joint just down the street from the park. It was supposedly the second best burger place in Winnipeg. I had fish, and it was, like, 75% grease. I should have had a burger. Then we went back to my house to shower. We played a bit of Jenga (Jengrifice!) and Guitar Hero, and then we set off for Derek's to hot tub! We stopped at a liquor store to get some booze and Dairy Queen for an icecream cake for ANDREW GRANT'S BIRTHDAY! Man alive. What an awesome night. We got a bit lost on the way, but I couldn't've asked for better company on deserted, pitch-black country roads. We got to Derek's and sat in his hot tub outside in the light drizzling rain for, like, an hour and a half. It was just glorious on our muscles. To top it off, Andrew gave us a stretching tutorial immediately after when our muscles were melted off the bone. That felt great. My shins were killing me the previous night and this just brought me back to, like, 50%. Then Derek's awesome mom helped us surprise Andrew with the cake and we sang happy birthday and took some pictures. What a great time. I love my footbag friends so much. Manna was telling us that Andrew's favourite is icecream cake; it turned out later that he only said that so that we would buy him icecream cake. What a little dink Great times. We went home, dropped Manna off, and relaxed with some YouTube videos before bed.

Net! On Sunday, we arrived to the venue a bit late. Joel was being interviewed by another local TV station (Andrew was interviewed by Global and CBC on Friday as everyone was arriving) and we were supposed to make it to the club for 1-ish. We didn't arrive until probably 2 or 2:30 and sadly missed seeing Byrin off. Saying goodbye is always so rough at hacky tournaments. I love everyone. It was sad to not be able to get a goodbye hug from Byrin. Then Rory and Kyle took off shortly after. I kept imagining how much more fun everything would have been after if Rory was still present. Particularly foursquare. After foursquare we fooled around with some net. We played some doubles and someone else wanted to join, and someone else, so we ended up with triples -- 3 on 3. Then more people just started joining (all freestylers I should add!) and we ended up with an epic game of 5-on-5 net! It was such a bloody blast! I can't believe how much fun I had. This totally added so many points to the score of Hackrifice 10 -- the bonding of freestyle and net. Not only this, but in foursquare there was a point where it was all net players. I felt in this respect that Hackrifice 10 has been a significant event in Canadian footbag. Freestyle and net. Epic. I plan to play a lot more net. I hope that we can have weekly jam sessions together and all play both. Joel, our founder and net player, is interested in getting shred shoes and getting back into freestyle, and Derek and I are stoked to play more net. Amazing. We played again today, Tuesday, at the same park, 3-on-3, and it was just as fun or more. Just an incredible time. We played Derek, Joel, and me versus Camille, Michelle, and Mike Faille. Hackrifice versus TVA (Toronto + Vancouver Association). Haha, and then we had 4-on-1, Joel versus everyone but Mike who sat out. "Now you can try!" Good times. I also snapped some pictures of everyone spiking. OH! Also I did a bunch of sole pushes!! Like maybe 1 out of 2 attempts ratio!

Mike Faille + Camille Amazing friends whom I love a ton. I just feel so good around them. It was really sad to see them off at the airport today So much love!

Watching Kevin's Hackrifice 9 on the big screen!
Animal sounds foursquare
Johnny + Byrin shred
Derek Vandall Busting huge after such a long absense from the sport. Can you say alpine PS reactor? Alpine matador BSOS? Alpine 69? That's an annual trick. Hit at every Hackrifice for the past 3 or 4 years. Nuclear blender. Nuclear ducking torque. He was really kicking off that rust today at the park. Rubberman 2 is his if he shows up on Saturday (which he's gotta, since he has my shorts still )
Manna Mpepo The kid is better than me, or quickly getting there. Frankenstein. Matador, sumo. Alpine whirlygig off the foot so many times. Pdx torque > ripwalk BSOS and pdx torque x2 so many times. What a monster. What a fast learner. He also acted like a dink a lot to Camille. Pdx drifter > pdx whirl. Not cool, punk



I picked up Mike + Camille and Johnny + Rishell on Friday morning first. I am really socially awkward and anxious, so it was a little weird at first, but I eventually warmed up. I dropped them off at the U of W where Andrew was being interviewed for the first time. I said hi to ShrEdmonton, met Kyle for the first time (the pendulum guy from Modified!), said hi to Andrew Dunford, Joel, Andrew, etc. Then I had to go get Waylon and Kevin from the airport again right away. Mike ended up coming with me, and everyone else stayed with Andrew and Joel and carpooled to The Forks for shred and a second interview. We caught up with Kevin and Waylon a bit -- Mike met Kevin for the first time. Then we went back and enjoyed shred for some hours. At one point I was shredding with Byrin, Rory, and Johnny, and I think Johnny was, like, "Is this everyone who's coming?" And I was, like, "Maybe. No, wait, I think Andrew is picking up someone at 7, and... holy crap! What time is it???", remembering I was supposed to ALSO pick up Jeff Lopes at the airport at 1:30? I checked the time -- 2:30. Sucky, sucky, sucky. I rushed to the airport, only to have just missed him. Went back home to check and got a note saying he taxied to The Forks. That made me feel super stupid, especially since in the Hackrifice thread I was, like, "Nobody waste your money on a taxi please."... I felt so bad, but I got back and Jeff was cool about it, thankfully. It was nice to see him after so many years (I think I saw him last in, like, 2002??? At Shred Zero, Calgary -- 6 years ago..)

So we had shred at The Forks for some while. Then we waited for Manna, so in total we were there for a while, and people were shredding when we arrived at the U of W. I don't remember any highlights I had, oh, right I posted some before: mobius > mobius was awesome, and Kevin said later, "I don't think I've seen Erik more excited before." I jumped up in the air and was, like, "YEEAAH!" before I even stalled the second mobius. Man alive That felt AMAZING. Then we went back to my house and cleaned up a bit or something? I don't remember. But then we had another shred session at the U of M later on. Two long sessions in one day! That's double the usual Hackrifice shred. After shred we went for bubble tea at Global Bubble Tea That was really fun, and I really liked sharing one of my favourite things with everyone! I think most people liked it, or at least didn't hate it! My table played Pass the Pigs (Manna, Kevin, and I kinda forget whom else? Andrew D?) which is always great. And the other tables played some games too. Wait, I think after this we went home and watched Kevin's Hackrifice 9 video! He surprised me with it when he arrived at the airport and just handed me a DVD marked "Hackrifice 9" and I was just, like, "WHAATTT?? It's done? I'm holding it????" INCREDIBLE. I could watch it 5 times every day and not get sick of it. I really want to. Wow. WOW!

The next day, Saturday, was really fun. Andrew was so awesome. We were a bit late. There was a camera crew again (oh, was there at The Forks? I forget? If so, that makes 4 times!) Andrew had granola bars and gatoraid for everyone, which was soooo cool. There was shred a little, but intermediate routines started almost right away. Then a bit of a break for judges and warm up for open routines. I decided to sign up a few minutes before intermediate and asked if Andrew had the "wpssh" song (of which I need to one day learn the name). So we warmed up a bit and then I played some net with Mike Faille (I think??) and two others (locals?) That was pretty fun, though we were really bad. I was up first for routines, which I was happy about to get it out of the way and not stress while waiting. I made it up on the spot to "wpssh", and people liked it a lot. Camille said I didn't drop until after a minute. I had some neat cues where I paused on ducking clippers and legovers. My variety was pretty lame, but I basically just planned to shred and do some 2 adds to the beat. I actually even pulled off juggling without dropping, which I never practice. It was exciting. I think I dropped maybe 3-5 times? Pretty good for a first routine at the last minute with absolutely no planning or choreography. Then after there was shred. I actually played really bad all weekend overall, and it was frustrating. Every once in a while I would have a pretty good run, but meh.

Afterwards we went back and washed up (oh, no wait, we were gonna, but time got away from us) and went straight to Andrew's house for Annual Mrs. Grant spaghetti dinner. Awesome. We watched Hackrifice 9 again and many other videos. Where the Ripwalk Ends and Aggressive Grounds with commentary, and then Manna requested Hackrifice 2004. This was a super highlight for me. Everyone was so into it and loved it so much and rekindling great memories. People sang along and knew all the music (particularly Byrin). Everyone loved the music to Andrew's 2004 section, and Manna really liked the music to Derek's '04 section. It brought a smile to my face any time people said positive things about the video, and that was so great. Heart-warming. We also watched VOTDS2 and again everyone remembered the music and everything I think Byrin said that Andrew's 2004 section was the first video he saw or something? I dunno. Something like that. Then we went down to Andrew's room and watched the interview and TV-spot from a few hours before that his parents taped. Then we headed straight to the event site, The Park Theatre. We sat around for a while. My friend Nelly came by, which was really wonderful, though I didn't spend any time with her really, we just kinda said hi, and I barely ever see her on account of school and work. Then my big brother came and we chatted up a bit, and that was really nice. He brought 6 friends and said that they all really had fun! The show itself was just incredible. First of all, it opened with a big-screen viewing of the intro to Kevin's video! WOW! What an incredible video to show to a crowd! I was soooo stoked. Watching the video on big screen was one of my favourite parts of Hackrifice 10, hands down. I love hacky videos -- what can I say? Andrew's friend Will was awesome at MCing, and Andrew was also, as always. They had random draws for prizes, which was great fun, as well as segmented demos explaining trick components between every chunk of show, like after the video, then after intermediate routines, then after numbers contest (for which barely anyone entered (Nelly said she was going to, but then forget why she said she didn't. Intimidating I guess! She would've won too, easily)). It was disappointing that Andrew's mom backed out of competing. Then there was open routines. I went second and did quite bad. Halfway through I decided I would just do ducking clippers, but then realized that would look kinda dumb after about 20... It was much worse than my previous attempt. Then there was Rippin Run. Apparently my battle against Andrew was epic and I dropped, like, half a second before him. For the end of the demo, Andrew had Byrin demonstrate maelstrom, a 6, combining most elements, and then montage, a 7, both of which he hit first try. I think he also ended Rippin Run on montage, or his routine, or something. Then we shredded on stage all night. Andrew was incredible and bought us all beers! Wow! I think he said he spent, like, $280 on beers! What an awesome guy! How does someone become so awesome? I played super, super bad, but had fun messing around with Rory, Denton, and Mike. Johnny and Byrin were going OFF, of which Kevin probably filmed most. Sick, sick stuff.

I dunno. Then Sunday I don't think anyone really shredded? We went and kept net company as I said before and played foursquare and 5-on-5 net. It was an incredible time. Thank you ever so much to everyone for coming and to everyone who chipped in for gas. Normally I would feel bad about accepting charity, but it really, really did help out, and I really appreciate it a ton! You guys are the best. Big ups to Waylon Lew for coming out all the way from NEW YORK! And to Jeff Lopes for coming OUT OF RETIREMENT to attend! Also thanks to Andrew D for the amaretta and caribou sticks! Thanks to all the new players I hadn't met for showing up and kicking with us! I hope to see you all again next year!!! ♥

[mannampepo]

good asss write up Erik! Hackrifice was th-the best.
haha.... im nooo punk, am i ?!

[Muffinman]

Had a fun session today.
It was a lame session. I don't think I hit anything noteworthy, but it was fun. Andrew bailed on his bike so he was absent. But it was me, Derek, and Manna. Derek was BUSTING. Nuclear whirl BSOS. One run with blurry ducking whirl one side and pixie ducking whirl the other. Blurtigo one side and pot (alpine smoke -- I think Derek's invention?) the other. Lots of nuclear. Pdx torque > pdx blender > pdx torque. He sure got it back fast I hope he had fun and comes out more often again! Manna was owning as usual. I was trying to mix up my game, so that was neat, though my runs were crap. I opened a lot of runs with flip eggbeater, so I hope to implement those more. Also torques. Also osis tricks and zooming. Stepping out of osis tricks was awesome. Reverse swirls seemed quite on, which was awesome. I don't think I missed the BSOS on any rev swirl stuff.

The new guy from that thread here on Modified showed up. He had basic kicks pretty good, but after, like, half an hour he was owning flip inside kicks, which was really cool, 'cause he couldn't do them when he arrived. He had TERRIBLE shoes, but I think he's gonna order Lavers or something. Should be good -- he has lots of potential. I can sense it.

Then we went over to Joel (Hackrifice founder)'s to watch You Don't Mess With The Zohan. Haha. Worst movie I've ever seen possibly, but it was fun nonetheless. Joel and I had some nice... how do you say... we relived some classic Hackrifice moments from ages past. Like somehow Ghost in the Shell came up, and I was, like, "Didn't you use that song from the first movie in your routine from Hackrifice 2?" And then he was all impressed that I remembered. And then he mentioned a bag from back in the day, "Old Yeller" -- the choice Hackrifice bag back in, like, 1999, and I was, like, "Oh yeah, that yellow and black one??" Memories ♥ Between Manna, Derek, and Joel I basically got a yummy snacky meal for free We're really stoked on merging Hackrifice net and freestyle. Joel wants to freestyle again and Derek and I really like net :p We also talked a lot about takraw and wanna get into it like FAT. Manna and I are going to try to get Hackrifice to start actually hanging out more. That's never really happened before. Not like FAT where we were all, like, best friends. So I'm exciting to see if that takes off. I used to hang out with Taras (Derek's mentor) quite a bit, but that was a long time ago and I guess he isn't into hack anymore.

Oh, also, probably the highlight of the night was watching my Europe video on Joel's big screen HD TV, and then Manna requesting to watch it again

Hackrifice ad infinitum!

[Eric Chang]

Hey Erik congrats on the tricks! But even though you hit it, I want to say I'm now cooler than you



I have my own beer WHAT WHAT. WHAT yeah that is right. THAT IS RIGHT. WHAT .

By the way I think I am the one starting a new page so check out muffinmans' post ^^.

[ebo]

chang beer is a great thai beer. "chang" means elephant in thai!


thank you for the great video, Erik.

[hacksterbator]

sounds like i missed out. The only time hackrifice used to hang out was before manna started, derek had retired, and while you were injured. Jess, josh and i used to go for beers all the time. then jess dislocated her knee and josh got busy with life and i played on my own.

[Muffinman]

Shred Session: 20080930:
(Yeah, I do still plan to finish my Worlds write-up...honest...)

I just had a blast. 2-hour solo.
I don't know if I've ever had this much genuine (no pun) fun with footbag as when I've started schooling the crap out of osis. I should clarify that I have always been one of those players who felt that osis should be 9 adds. It has never, ever come easy to me. It has all I have been soloing for the past month, and it is sooo fun. It's low-impact but still challenging as anything else. And styley as hell. I keep looking forward to soloing so I can push this part of my game more. It was just a blast. So my session was basically JUST drilling. I think I only did one or two actual runs to warm down at the end. I'll try to recap all of the stuff I did:

-osis > merkon > osis > parallax [repeat]
-osis > pandora > osis > gyro pickup [repeat]
-osis > spinning mirage > osis > gyro mirage [repeat] (I tried to back-to-back all of these drills, but man alive I guess I'm not QUITE ready; almost)
-osis > spinning ducking clipper > osis > gyro diving clipper [repeat]
-close again to spinning osis x3 > gyro osis x3 [repeat]
-may have done diving osis > gyro osis [repeat] > ducking osis > spinning osis [repeat]
-rev swirl x3 (only 2 flip -- shin discomfort wouldn't let me push)
-torque x3 (only 2 flip -- shin discomfort wouldn't let me push)
-toe torque > torque [both sides]
-pdx mirage > torque > osis > osis > torque [repeat]
-pdx torque > pdx torque (first-ish try!; really close on other side)
-also tried spinning osis > ripwalk > gyro osis > ripwalk [repeat]; really close; feels AWESOME!

Yeah.
That's basically it. It was really fun. I should pop an ibuprofen though. I gotta go meet some friends for bubble tea before they move back to Whitehorse, Yukon, in about 2 hours. In other news Andrew, Manna, and I are planning to revamp Hackrifice.com and blog there instead of here with videos, like JohnnySuderman.com Should be fun! Maybe within the week. Also, our new recruit ordered Lavers within one session with us! DOPE!

In non-hacky news, I found out that I can apply for internal school division jobs (I am already an employee... just not employed ) all online without interview or application or resume or anything Sweet! So I applied to a position today. I'm trying to be productive. I wanna make some money and finally move out and get on track... for whatever is out there. Marita and I are gonna stay best-best friends, which is really, really nice. She is in India though without contact info, so I miss her lots. My best friend is also out in the country visiting her dad, and it sucks to not have her here, but I may go drive out with her roommate and stay a night or something later this week. And I'm gonna start hanging with two other friends whom I never see much of, so that should be really nice. I've never really had friends other than Marita and my best friend, Willow. What else... Oh I should remember to bring in my bike for tune-up later tonight (and find out where Gord's Cycle moved to!) Here is my new uplifting song that gets stuck in my head. Really sweet:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0oTjRk5e0A[/youtube]



EDIT: Here's something that Matt Cross wrote in the FAT blog today. I found it really sweet and brought back incredible memories:

What's your favorite FAT story?

I've got a lot of them, of course.

Here's one of my faves.

The time I came up to do the Breaking the Cycle show with Erik and Adam!

The show itself did not go well for me. Erik and Adam both played well. I played really badly that night, BUT...

after the show, I got my YTV Jock Shorts TV spot a few days later, so I had the privilege of staying in TO a little longer. I had some family friends I could have stayed with, but Erik and Marita put me up in their apartment, right by the CN tower. I had been taking a break from my smoking habit, so my lungs and head were clearing up nicely, which led to me doing some of my best freestyle playing to date (which made it onto the FATCross video). The non-footbag time there was great, though;

it was my first time meeting Marita, and she totally took care of me during my extra time in TO. Erik had work, so while he was there, Marita and I went on long walks and talked about TO and my girl problems at the time. We went shopping and had lunch and basically had a great time. I'd never even really spoken to her before, but Erik told me she liked my music, so when we got together back at the apartment with Erik and Mike after the FATCross session, I played some guitar for them (which also made it onto FATCross), and got to see some of Mike's work on paper.

I had had NO idea of the depth of his talent, passion, and skill! I tend to infer a lot about peoples' character based on how I've seen their passion manifest itself (or rather, whether they have passion at all; if someone's got passion, I can respect it [maybe just partially, or maybe on a separate level from the rest of my opinion of them], no matter for what that passion is for) so when I know someone outside of one of their passions, and then I become exposed to it, I usually see people on a whole new level.

So, it was great to be exposed to Marita's passion for friendship, hosting, and welcoming, and to be exposed to Mike's passion for images. They both brought me to a new level of admiration for their beautiful selves.

back to the Breaking the Cycle show...

the FAT session we had afterward was a blast! Josh Lackey broke out MC#42 (turtle), a bag that he's kept in PRIME condition for as long as possible (thanks Josh! means a lot to me). I'm not sure if anyone's game was super hot, but there were LOTS of people around to check out freestyle, and it was during this session that I got my YTV session, as well as some contact info from a promo agency in TO that I have yet to take advantage of Wink gotta get on that...

So, just wanted to share some positive Toronto memories. I could go ON and ON!!! and, tell you what, if a few more people share some nice memories, I'll post another one Wink

love you guys!

[Muffinman]

Hey everyone.
We've just revamped our website and we are going to be keeping it really up to date with blogs and new videos, a la JohnnySuderman.com. Andrew, Manna, and I will be moving our footblogs over to there permanently, and we have lots of fun stuff planned. Come check it out!
See you on Hackrifice.com!!

http://www.hackrifice.com



PS: Please give us some feedback!
PPS: It's a bit glitchy in different ways in IE and in Firefox (especially IE).

[Jack Stutler]

yo the new hackrifice site looks amazing. very well done.

can't wait for some posts

edit: one small thing, the text is a little hard to read towards the bottom of the page, where that leafy vine type thing is. very minor issue, and it may just be me.

[mahhkohh]

hey, checked it out today, somehow i cant watch the tutorial videos for the advanced section. maybe someone look this up, amy just be my pc.

otherwise, its cool that you blog over there now, tho this means i have to check 2 sites for my daily blog reading. i realy realy like the design of the page. was the sign allways there? or is it new? i dont remember it. i dont knopw the english word, the old medival style knight sign in the background.... someone help me out with the word. yeah...i´ll check the est of the site later...after some sleep...

[Reid]

I know this is sixty pages ago, but is anyone still playing warbook?

[Slowsis]

I am....... Adam Greenwood on facebook, Lakeport Pilsner and 3rd Degree on WB.

[Reid]

I'm inbibulouswapiti on WB

[Muffinman]

I'd really like some feedback on my game. I didn't really want to start a new thread somewhere, so figured this is the best place, even though I moved my blog to Hackrifice.

Please elaborate on your poll option. Especially if you would like to combine things. Like, "Nice trick selection and combos, but bad style", or vice versa, or whatever. I feel that a lot of the time I just do the same tricks and combos and that everything is so bothsided that my runs are jujst big drills and BSOSes... I'm particularly concerned about reverse whirl tricks (since they are probably 50-75% of my "big trick" vocabulary), and things like too many ducking clippers, or always bailing to the same trick on the same side... that sort of thing.

I'm looking for anything negative so I can clean up. I also would love ideas on how to spruce up my game, since I lot of the time I can never think of what to do and like my repertoire is so limited. Are there tricks that I never do that I probably could?


I have a bunch of videos of my at http://www.youtube.com/user/Hackrifice where you can see kind of the better stuff I probably do. Though it's not super accurate -- so people who know my shred in person would be most helpful! Thanks a bunch!!!!

[Iron Clad Ben]

Ugh, so I hate to sound all fanboyish , like a little schoolgirl , but I LOVE your style. I always like your videos too. Seeing a new "Hackrifice: Erik Chan" post populate in Google Reader always makes me happy. Even if there is not that much progression in your game, it's just fun to watch you play. No one else has your style, not even close. Honestly, shuffle gets boring to me. While I appreciate the skill it takes to do it, it's just not as enjoyable or smooth to me. Sort of by coincidence I've developed a similar style to yours. I prefer ducks, spins and DLOs, and I don't do whirls.

I can only think of one component that I would like to see you integrate more into your game, and that is osis. I think it would be cool to see you bust some dynos, zooms and spinning osii. I think they would integrate well into your game.

That being said, don't take too much stock in what other people think. Footbag (or really anything) is much more fun when you play just to please yourself. I'm not saying you need to be selfish or anything, but think of what's good style in terms of your own values. I'm re-reading the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People right now (an amazing book BTW if you haven't read it I highly recommend it) and I could go on about how that all ties into the 1st habit. So seriously, just keep on doin' what you're doin'. If there is some aspect of your game that you are unsatisfied with, give it some thought. What is of value to YOU? Forget everyone else and just focus on pursuing that.

[footbagi]

I wouldn't trade your style for anything Erik. By style I mean trick selection, execution, continuity, difficulty, uniqueness. You are in your own league, and don't let that be reason to scare you (or make you feel alone) Embrace it!

There is something to be said about this "drill mindset". I have it! Everything I do is or part of some form of drill. I get worried about it sometimes. That it might not be freestyle enough. But then I realized it was just my expression of freestyle. It's also important to realize whether or not it's fun for you. If you feel trapped in drill-mode than bust out. Although if you enjoy it drill it up!

I hope I was of positive influence. PM if you wanna chat more...