Ball shaving? Seriously?

So, I normally look at my blog in Firefox, and I have Adblock Plus turned on, so I don't see the ads.
By the way, the ads are kind of a joke, I just put them on to see if I would get a lot of traffic due to the domain, and if so, would I make any money. So far, I have earned a whopping 3 cents. I think you have to earn $100 to get a paycheck, so I am .03% of the way there.
I happened to open the site in IE and I saw this ad:

From Ned? Ned Ryerson? Bing!

Seriously? Ball shaving?
I understand that AdSense uses context to determine what ads to post, and I have a post about juggling balls, but come on!
Of course, I realize that by writing this post, it's only going to get worse. To that, I can only say this:
"Bring it on."

"We need more monkeys"

Just a quick update. Last week LucasArts released The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition, which is a remake of the original game, complete with full voice acting and updated graphics. It is a scene for scene remake. One of the cool things about it is that at any point you can press F10 and switch to classic view instantly.
I picked it up last night and played for about 1/2 hour. It's on Steam for $9.99.
I hope they redo Monkey Island 2 also, but I'm not holding my breath.

Of Monkeys and Islands

Back in the days of Point and Click Adventure Games, LucasArts was king. Maniac Mansion, Sam and Max, Full Throttle, The Dig. All of these games were awesome. They were fun, funny, and just the right amount of challenge.
I preferred the LucasArts games to the Sierra Games (Kings Quest, Space Quest, etc...) because there was no way to lose in a LucasArts game. In the Sierra games, if you failed to pick up a certain item somewhere, or talk to the right person, it was possible (and common) to find yourself in an unwinnable situation, and you would have to reload a previous save and try again. In the LucasArts game, that never happened.
The king of LucasArts games was the Monkey Island Series. I actually played the third game first and then went back and bought a collection that included 1 and 2.
Point and Click adventure games are sort of experiencing a renaissance right now. Telltale Games has been creating episodic point and click games for the past few years including a Strong Bad game, and new Sam and Max adventures. They just released episode one of a new Monkey Island adventure, which I played through this weekend. I have to say it's pretty good, but short (I finished it in about 3 or 4 hours), although, since it's only 1/5 of an entire game, that's not too bad.

Playing with my new spheroid objects

When I was in 6th grade or so, I took a magic class over the summer. I was actually pretty good at it, and was obsessed with magic tricks. I think at some point, most boys are into magic.
But I'm not here to talk to you about magic. The point is, that the teacher also could juggle, and took the time one day to teach us how to juggle 3 balls. I also was pretty good at that.
I was pretty good with 3 balls, and could also juggle 2 in one hand (right hand only), but could never figure out how to do 4 or more balls.
Until about 2 years ago.
My wife and I went on a cruise, and one of the shows was a juggling act. The guys who did the act had a juggling workshop the next day, and I went to it. There I learned the secret of 4 ball juggling, which I will now expose to the world: 4 ball juggling is just 2 balls in each hand. The balls never switch hands. In fact, that's how all even number juggling works.
Actually, it's not really a secret. Sorry.
The guys on the cruise had these silicone balls that were really cool. My wife wanted to get me a set, so she started looking around. She found this cool website JugglingStore.com that had silicone balls, but they were $35 each. Each!
Instead she got me a set of 4 juggling beanbags, which I used to start learning to juggle 4 balls. Even though she didn't buy anything from JugglingStore.com, she subscribed to their newsletter, and occasionally would forward me their emails if they were having a sale or something.
Last week, I finally decided to get some good balls from them. I found out that the silicone balls weren't really what I wanted anyway, since they bounce (in fact, they are awesome at bouncing, that's what they are for), and if you are not doing bounce juggling, it's better that your balls don't bounce.
I ordered some MB Stage Balls which are hard rubber balls that don't bounce so much and cost way less than the silicone balls. They've also got a lot of other cool stuff like beanbags, hybrid balls, clubs, and a sister site (actually the original site), MagicGeek.com which sells magic tricks, but I didn't order anything else (yet), except for a DVD.
The order came in on Tuesday, and I have been playing with them since then. I like them better than the beanbags. They are larger and heavier, which I think leads to a more consistent throw.
My goal right now is to be able to do some cool 3 ball tricks, improve my 4 ball (I can go about 10 seconds or so before losing it), and to learn how to do 5 ball.
Then I'm going to move on to clubs...
* Post title edited 8/13/09 to keep the perverts from finding my site

Linkaroo

To continue my pattern of real articles surrounded by links, today's link is Sluggy Freelance, a truly awesome webcomic. It successfully mixes humor, adventure, sci-fi and just plain wackiness.
Rather than a joke-a-day, this comic is more of a serial, so just jumping right in to today's episode might be confusing, so I suggest you check out the New Viewer Guide to get caught up.
Many people cite That Which Redeems as their favorite chapter, but my personal favorite is Oceans Unmoving. I really like the time-travel elements, the plot twists, and I think that this story shows Bun-Bun at his very best.

Del Mar Fair

Went to the Del Mar San Diego County Fair this weekend. Every year I'm excited about going, and every year I'm disappointed.
I'm a cheapskate, so we always park at the Horse Park and take the shuttle bus to the fairground. It's free, and I honestly think it's more convenient than paying $10 to park in the fair lot and walk half a mile from your car.
This year's "Crazy food items" (Quotes added for sarcastic emphasis) were the zucchini weenie, (A hollowed out zucchini with a hot dog stuffed inside, battered and deep fried) and the oatmeal chocolate chip cookie chicken sandwich with strawberry jam. Free barf bag included with that one.
I would love to have whoever's job it is to come up with that crap.
I chose instead the monster western sausage and tasty chips. Later my wife and I split a funnel cake. Still too much food for too much money.
When I was a kid I was amazed by all the gadgets that were on sale in the exhibit halls. I don't know if the stuff has gotten worse, or if I just realize that most of it is crap now that I am an adult. I think it's a little of both.
The Boy™ enjoyed looking at the animals. No rides this year though. We thought about taking him on something tame, but he was getting sleepy. Plus I still don't trust rides which are designed to be taken apart by half-drunk carnies and put on the back of a truck in 20 minutes.
Don't get me wrong. I still had a good time. I just always build it up in my mind that it always is going to be more fun than it actually ends up.
Still, can't wait until year. I'm sure it will be great!

Wild Cards

I've been reading a lot of books lately. I tend to be in the middle of several books at the same time. I just finished reading book 2 of the Wild Cards series.
If you're not familiar with it, check it out here on Wikipedia.
I read a lot of comic books in jr. high and high school, and it's an interesting take on the superhero genre.
Of the two volumes I have read so far they both follow the same structure. The book is composed of short stories, written by different authors, but combined together, they tell a complete story.
I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series.