Although this happened like 3 days ago, I couldn't have posted it around the same time as the wireless in my hotel was virtually non-existent.
I went to Penn and Teller's show at the Rio in Las Vegas and I enjoyed it immensely. Afterwards, I ended up meeting them, briefly talking to them, and getting both of their autographs. Yes Teller does indeed talk, just not on stage. I told Penn that I listened to PennRadio and watched Bullshit. He seemed more impressed that I knew of his radio show and commended me for that.
I'll post pics of their autographs soon, just as soon as I get a replacement cord for my digital camera which my brother stupidly lost in Vegas.
Ok, for my thing of the day I'm presenting a TV special that I recorded and thoroughly enjoyed as a teen, but I had forgotten about over time. In fact, I hadn't thought about it for years until something made me think of it yesterday which made me search YouTube for it. So for my thing of the day I present to you, Rudy Coby: The Coolest Magician on Earth:
Much of the show is kind of cheesy, but there are some pretty interesting illusions spread throughout the show. Most impressive is the last part, the "Puppet Boy" trick, so make sure if nothing else you watch the last part.
I was watching Gabe draw the comic over ustream yesterday, and he mentioned the original idea was a Rock Band Def Leopard which came with one drum stick, a sling, and a hacksaw.
I know that practically everybody here reads Penny Arcade, but the newest one is just so horrible that it has to be in here:
Thanks for that. That's pretty awful. But reading the blog post led me to my thing of the day -- Bethesda has loaned out the Fallout license to Obsidian, one of the two companies descended from Black Isle, who made the original Fallout games. There will be a new Fallout game made by ORIGINAL FALLOUT CREATORS. Holy shits.
My thing of the day is Skeptoid Episode 150. Skeptoid is normally a mini lecture investigation type thing about science and pseudoscience... but this latest episode is completely different. And awesome. If you don't listen to the podcast regularly it might not be that funny though.
Thing of the day: bumped to first class on the last leg of my journey to Florida. Fail of the day: except for the wider seat, Delta first class on a small plane isn't a huge step up from economy class on other lines.
I just posted this on my blog, but it's my thing of the day (for yesterday) so I thought I'd post it here too.
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Normally, when I travel for work, I get my flight details a week or so in advanced. This time I got them a full 14 hours in advance. The waiting was a bit stressful, but thankfully I got what I needed.
On Friday I flew from Berlin to JFK, then got on a much smaller plane down to Fort Lauderdale. As I approached my seat, I found it was already taken. This pissed me off because it was a emergency exit/plenty of legroom seat. But the man sitting in the seat said "It's your lucky day," and handed my a slip of paper showing my new seat number. Seat 1C. First class! This doesn't happen to me very often.
The seat was nice and wide, plus I had the luxury of legroom. I was fed dinner for free, while in coach class I'd have had to pay for the food. And I wouldn't have paid, of course, because it's airline food. Apart from that, the flight was the same as normal; I read it bit, then fell asleep. Jetlag was telling me the time was 12 midnight.
Anyway, this left me with a night and half a day in Fort Lauderdale. I'd checked online for "things to do in Fort Lauderdale" and while there's plenty of activities, there's not much I could do in four hours. Apart from the busiest cruise terminal in the world, the only thing I knew about Fort Lauderdale was that the James Randi Educational Foundation office and library was somewhere in the vicinity. It turned out to be almost exactly on my taxi route from the hotel to the ship.
I called to make sure James Randi himself would be there, and he was, so I popped in for a visit.
For those who don't know, James Randi (also known as The Amazing Randi) is a quite well known magician and escapologist, but a legendary scientific skeptic and debunker of those who claim to have psychic powers. Whenever I've heard him speak on radio shows or podcasts he's always been fascinating, and always has another story to tell. And I knew he enjoys visitors.
So we had a really good chat for about two hours. First we talked about juggling and magic, then entertaining in general, then writing ideas... actually we moved and moved on through countless other topics.
However, we were sitting in the "Isaac Asimov Reference Library", so I asked why it was so called. It turns out Randi was good friends with Asimov. Not only that, but with many other science fiction writers like Lester del Rey, Frederik Pohl and L. Sprague de Camp. This collection of names immediately set off alarm bells in my head, and sure enough, Randi admitted to being a member of the Trap Door Spiders for a while when he lived in New Jersey. This fact is really only interesting to science fiction literature geeks such as and, if you knew about the Trap Door Spiders before clicking on that link, YOU.
We ended up sitting at Randi's computer, getting pissed off at it crashing, trying to find a science fiction short story Radni had written twenty five years ago. It was never found, and I stupidly left my USB thumb drive stuck in the computer.
But I don't mind losing a thumb drive, because meeting Randi, swapping stories, finding out about secret "easter eggs" in his books, browsing the library and generally chatting about mutually interesting topics was worth it.
If you're ever in Fort Lauderdale, call in on Randi. He obviously loves visitors, as each one is a new opportunity for him to do what he likes doing best; telling stories.
Yay, Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service will continue. However, the thing about it that actually makes it ToTD worthy is the fact that the new magazine is called "Young Ace" which was also the name of the then fictional magazine Numata found the human ear in in Volume 3.
I have decided that when I get this motorbike, the next things on my shopping list are either the matt black or white version of this helmet and one of these face protectors
Comments
Watch in high quality.
I went to Penn and Teller's show at the Rio in Las Vegas and I enjoyed it immensely. Afterwards, I ended up meeting them, briefly talking to them, and getting both of their autographs. Yes Teller does indeed talk, just not on stage. I told Penn that I listened to PennRadio and watched Bullshit. He seemed more impressed that I knew of his radio show and commended me for that.
I'll post pics of their autographs soon, just as soon as I get a replacement cord for my digital camera which my brother stupidly lost in Vegas.
Much of the show is kind of cheesy, but there are some pretty interesting illusions spread throughout the show. Most impressive is the last part, the "Puppet Boy" trick, so make sure if nothing else you watch the last part.
Awesome
Anyway, I'm sure every city has these things to complain about. It's just hilarious coming from this guy.
----
Normally, when I travel for work, I get my flight details a week or so in advanced. This time I got them a full 14 hours in advance. The waiting was a bit stressful, but thankfully I got what I needed.
On Friday I flew from Berlin to JFK, then got on a much smaller plane down to Fort Lauderdale. As I approached my seat, I found it was already taken. This pissed me off because it was a emergency exit/plenty of legroom seat. But the man sitting in the seat said "It's your lucky day," and handed my a slip of paper showing my new seat number. Seat 1C. First class! This doesn't happen to me very often.
The seat was nice and wide, plus I had the luxury of legroom. I was fed dinner for free, while in coach class I'd have had to pay for the food. And I wouldn't have paid, of course, because it's airline food. Apart from that, the flight was the same as normal; I read it bit, then fell asleep. Jetlag was telling me the time was 12 midnight.
Anyway, this left me with a night and half a day in Fort Lauderdale. I'd checked online for "things to do in Fort Lauderdale" and while there's plenty of activities, there's not much I could do in four hours. Apart from the busiest cruise terminal in the world, the only thing I knew about Fort Lauderdale was that the James Randi Educational Foundation office and library was somewhere in the vicinity. It turned out to be almost exactly on my taxi route from the hotel to the ship.
I called to make sure James Randi himself would be there, and he was, so I popped in for a visit.
For those who don't know, James Randi (also known as The Amazing Randi) is a quite well known magician and escapologist, but a legendary scientific skeptic and debunker of those who claim to have psychic powers. Whenever I've heard him speak on radio shows or podcasts he's always been fascinating, and always has another story to tell. And I knew he enjoys visitors.
So we had a really good chat for about two hours. First we talked about juggling and magic, then entertaining in general, then writing ideas... actually we moved and moved on through countless other topics.
However, we were sitting in the "Isaac Asimov Reference Library", so I asked why it was so called. It turns out Randi was good friends with Asimov. Not only that, but with many other science fiction writers like Lester del Rey, Frederik Pohl and L. Sprague de Camp. This collection of names immediately set off alarm bells in my head, and sure enough, Randi admitted to being a member of the Trap Door Spiders for a while when he lived in New Jersey. This fact is really only interesting to science fiction literature geeks such as and, if you knew about the Trap Door Spiders before clicking on that link, YOU.
We ended up sitting at Randi's computer, getting pissed off at it crashing, trying to find a science fiction short story Radni had written twenty five years ago. It was never found, and I stupidly left my USB thumb drive stuck in the computer.
But I don't mind losing a thumb drive, because meeting Randi, swapping stories, finding out about secret "easter eggs" in his books, browsing the library and generally chatting about mutually interesting topics was worth it.
If you're ever in Fort Lauderdale, call in on Randi. He obviously loves visitors, as each one is a new opportunity for him to do what he likes doing best; telling stories.
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Found it in one of the TOTD links.