Occulus Migraine #2

Sunday, the day after Christmas, my sister, bro-in-law, and I went to Arundel Mills mall.
While waiting on line at Best Buy and talking to Frederic, I noticed that his shirt seemed to be "moving" in my vision. I dismissed it as my eyes playing tricks on me: the fluorescent lights were harsh, there was a lot of movement in the store, and I figured maybe I caught the "sunspots" after effect of looking at the bright lights directly. Fine.
We walked out of Best Buy into the mall proper and a couple walked by me and their shirts at chest level seemed blurred/not clear to me. Hmmmm... :-/

We popped into the Levi's store and while Frederic was looking around I noticed a bit more of my vision was getting fuzzy: a full crescent along the right side of my vision. I asked my sister if she had any pills, and she did: ibuprofen. I swallowed a pill without any liquid (ew, I hate that feeling) and explained why I asked. A little bit of pressure was developing around my right eye, behind my skull, but no pain.
When we walked out that store it happened: the fuzziness of my vision on the right side turned into sparkles and I couldn't see in that area at all. Just sparkles. Think silver tinsel all over the right side of your vision, that's a good way to describe it.
If I closed my eyes, I got dizzy and could tell I'd get nauseous after a moment, so I couldn't get relief that way.

We went to another store (Five Below, the reason I wanted to come to the mall) and I bought a Wiimote attachment: the Magnum gun shell. I had to read the packaging with basically one eye disabled, but I was okay.
By the time we left Five Below my brain directly behind my forehead felt like it was trying to push out of my skull (it didn't hurt per se, but there was a lot of pressure). I bought a vending machine 20oz Cherry Coke and downed it. By the time we walked back to Best Buy my vision was back to normal, I just had the headache pressure in my frontal lobe.

I'm pretty sure this migraine was caused by tiredness and eye strain, due to not getting much sleep for 4 days in a row and being off my normal sleep schedule.

Most of the day today I had a weak headache or moderate pressure in my frontal lobe. Been wearing my glasses since yesterday afternoon.

No flourishes today

I was looking at playing card flourishes on sites like Decknique and thought "Man I'm old" because they all look like kids (well, kids & teenagers) just showing off and being hyper. I started to realize that flourishes like those extreme crazy ones shouldn't mesh with magic in a magic trick performance.
They I realized I'm just taking the mature, theatrical stance. In my mind I hate doing 95% of the magic tricks I'm exposed to or even know. I don't ever want to say that cards have personalities, or that you can spell the name of a card to locate it after a deck is shuffled, or that red & black cards are like oil & water and will automatically separate, or that a coin might go up my sleeve - across my chest - and down the other sleeve to get from one hand to another 'secretly'... no no no: I hate that superfluous trite!
Entertaining? Sure.
Looks good? Maybe.
Closest as theatrically possible to real magic? No.

That's why the past couple of years I've been leaning toward straight-forward effects. Effects, not tricks. The presentations I've been developing have been more about perception, imagination becoming reality, and illusion. The fewer "props" that need to be used, the better.
And so whenever I start thinking this way, all of my paths start leading toward Mentalism.
I like the slower-paced style; taking time to build an effect and engage someone's mind. Then make it explode.


BTW, I can do a lot of fancy card flourishes and multi-packet cuts that you see on those flourish sites. That's just a side-interest, something to do with a deck of cards in my hands. Not something I incorporate into a performance.

Dec, 2 weeks before Christmas

My sister & bro-in-law have settled on a house and have all of that in progress!
Saturday I hung out at their apartment for the last time. We found a very good Thai restaurant not far from Columbia and had a tasty dinner. Then back at their place we watched The Sorcerer's Apprentice [2010, Nicholas Cage] and Despicable Me. LOVE both. Wish I had gotten to see them in the theater, but nobody loves me. ;-P

Sunday Steve invited me over, and so for the first time I headed over there. Fun! The buildings he's already built for next BrickFair knocked my socks off. =) I plan to build a few buildings by then to add to his display.


And you know last week the new expansion for World of Warcraft came out: Cataclysm. It. Is. Awesome.
This is my first expansion from release day. Fun times. I picked up my pre-ordered copy from Gamestop at lunchtime and installed it as soon as I got home from work. I was 1400th in queue to log into the server I play on, which is a high-population server. Took an hour to get in. You have to figure, 12 million players (however many bought the xpac on release day) spread across 100-some servers... The next day I only had to wait 5 min, and since then I haven't had to wait (and that's good & normal).

I'm taking my time leveling my main, Ixmucane, the warlock. He's almost level 83 (from 80, pre-expansion) and the level cap was only increased to 85. Steve hit 85 in, what? two days? He's already running heroics (heroic dungeons, the harder difficulty versions). See, he likes the raiding content. I enjoy leveling and being part of lore. The revamped Cataclysm quests are much more story-driven and motivated, so they are more fun to get into. More enjoyable. I like dungeons with a good group, but I have to be in the mood for it and have no time-constraints. Later on Fri/Sat nights are good. It's always fun to be raiding at 3-4am, bleary-eyed and half-asleep just pushing buttons to attack... all just until you finish the last boss, for the team!

So instead of leveling my main, I've been leveling a worgen. A rogue in fact, which is pretty much the opposite in terms of gameplay to a warlock. I'm enjoying it. Being able to transform from human to werewolf at will is fun. They have British accents. Named mine Valintyne. ^_^

Magic Vid - Twisting The Aces

I want to start putting up short vids of myself doing magic.
The idea is to allow my magic friends (like Steve, Jason, etc) to critique and brainstorm over the internet via Comments.
Aaaaaaand everyone else who reads my blog (all 3 of you?) can maybe be entertained.
Vimeo lets you password-protect vids, so my ideas and presentations can stay within my world and not be subjected to the randomy filth & exposure on YouTube. The password is at the end of this post.


This is my presentation for the late Dai Vernon's Twisting The Aces. The "astronaut" line/display is from my good friend Jason Geist; it's much more fun than 'neck-tying' the deck at that point.
[It's very quiet cause I filmed it on my Droid X phone, so turn up the volume! Also, go full screen cause I filmed it at 720p.]



Password: vernon

The Godson -- drink

As a former bartender (master of mixology, naturally), I have a few custom drink concoctions. Once you get a feel for how liquors & flavors blend, it's not too difficult to create new mixes for a patron who wants you to surprise them because they don't know what to order (usually women).
I've been told I make the best chocolate martinis. And that's true! Several years and much experimentation has lead to the perfect blend of flavor, that goes down smoothly. A delicious dessert martini.
This is not that recipe.


THE GODSON
A "Godfather" is scotch & amaretto. This is a sweeter version, almost like a jocular, kiddie version of the original. And so I named it after the movie The Godson, a Rodney Dangerfield parody of The Godfather. This is for people who like a bit of whiskey/bourbon, but also want something very sweet. I've had waitresses tell me it smells like gasoline; it doesn't, but I've since thought of calling it such.

Ingredients:

1 oz Southern Comfort
1 oz Amaretto

Preparation:

1. Build ingredients over ice in an old-fashioned (rocks) glass.
2. Stir well
3. Serve with a swizzle stick, so the consumer can stir frequently to keep the mix even and cold.
Can be garnished with a cherry.