h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

And here I am

I've never actually passed with someone who knew the counting system, we seem to muddle by with vague descriptions. But I have read about it, juggling.org has a good article. It might make a good, lazy, back-burner kind of entry, RL is busy for me, too.

What exactly would collaboration on the AViator bit look like? My problem is that at the moment, I can't use my right arm properly due to some nerve damage from surgery, and it'll take four months or so to heal. So if you want me to juggle things for it, that isn't currently possible. I'd be glad to help with other things, though.

Woah, thats pretty bad... must be pretty vexing I should think.

I admit, I will at some point be searching for other jugglers, but again - there is no hurry - there are plenty of other things to AViate.

For the juggling, once I get some more time, I will probably pop over to the Juggling entry and create a new convo, maybe even drop by MaW's blog and see if he has time/inclination to do a bit - I kinda thought several people could do wee clips to illustrate bits of the article, especially the numbers (I only ever got as far as 5 balls sadly), technical, and lazy juggler classification, and we could have someone else doing the learn to juggle bit, which I think should be the meat of the clip. Even people who can't juggle at all could be useful as a test case example of someone learning, not to mention the voice overs, the editing, some flash animation maybe, the backing music, all of which take time and effort...

Ok - just alert me when you get there, I'll do what I can Must admit I never got up to doing five balls *poperly*, I can just about launch them but not keep them up. But then, I usually do more diabolo I currently suffer from lack of a place to practice, I've taken to bringing my juggling equipment along to regular (medieval martial arts) training and persuading the trainer to let me use them as a warmup, at least But that's out for a few months, too.

By "lazy" juggling to you mean the two in one hand and then wave your other hand up and down with a ball in it? I can still do that...

But Flash might, indeed, be the answer, I've been meaning to learn that properly. I'll see what I can do, might stave off withdrawal symptoms Well, the doc says I can and should still do a simple, low three-ball cascade to stay limber, but no clubs, no rings, no more than three balls, no throwing them high, no devilstick, no diabolo... So being told to do a cascade is just mean Better to go cold-turkey...

Good luck finding someone to play with!

You should use this oppurtunity to get your blind three ball cascade solid. Not very impressive from afar, but very very soothing once you get into the right frame of mind, and doing simple blind tricks (reverse cascade, half shower, maybe even a few catches of a blind Mills Mess ) is a nice way to impress other jugglers, and somehow, satisfying.

There are of course open source java juggling simulators on the web, I guess we could incorporate them (at least for the numbers bit), but considering how flash isn't that hard, we could probably make our own clips which would look better, just take longer.

good idea, trying it blind.

And there's even a widget for Opera that has all the different juggling moves as flash animations, might be something good to point people at for the interim

Of course, we can do something much better, like having it juggle h2g2 logos

What do you think then, is this enough of an idea to post at the bottom of A61813 in a new conversation, with a bit of additional explanation?

VoiceOver: Juggling can best be described as the art of stylishly throwing many objects into the air and then failing to drop them.
Shot: Someone juggling, but then dropping, making face.

VO: What constitutes actual juggling is debatable
Shot: People playing jolleyball with clubs, or some cross country diablo or something .

VO: In fact, anything that happens when groups of jugglers get together can be claimed to be juggling, especially if it occurs late in the evening in a pub
Shot: Someone doing some dodgy trick in a pub someplace.

VO: Generally though, a fairly safe definition would be the throwing and catching of three or more objects in some form of sequential pattern. These patterns include the cascade..... the shower..... and the fountain......
Shot: someon juggling the patterns obviously, with appropiate text labels layered over the shot.

VO: Jugglers themeselves can be classified into three main distinct types, the numbers juggler, [+ definition]... the technical juggler [+ def.].... and the lazy juggler [+ def.]...
Shot: (I reckon you people get the idea - 3 different jugglers, each doing there own thing)

VO: If all this sounds like fun, and you are looking to start learning to juggle, here are a few tips....

From here, the rest of the clip would detail how to learn to juggle three balls, from starting with one, to vamping with two, and on to the three ball cascade.

The closing scene would then be based around the final paragraph of the entry:

VO: Once you've got the hang of the cascade the world is your oyster. There are lots of three-ball tricks which are variations on the cascade, and you could try to master the shower, where all the balls circulate in front of you. Then move on to fruit, umbrellas, bowling balls and eggs (always fun that) and you'll be juggling fire-clubs while unicycling backwards on a tightrope before you know it. Remember though, to keep the old juggling adage in your mind: don't try this at home. Go round to your neighbour's house and let them clean up the mess.

Shot: maybe an animation of someone juggling the world and some oysters (unless someone has any world map bean bags, which I have seen in shops in the past) , then back to real people juggling all sorts of stuff, then closing shot, someone juggling eggs and dropping one on a kitchen floor (I don't mind doing the last one, our kitchen floor is easy to clean).


What do you reckon?
vp

That sounds like a good screenplay to me

I'm sure I can get you some shots of people juggling strange things, in full medieval kit if you like - I've got machetes myself (lazy juggler here, the audience goes ooooh ) and a leather chicken that looks like a rubber one. Somewhere I've even got a news segment from a convention of myself juggling a frying pan, a rubber chicken, and a rubber pig, but I think it's on video cassette

Also, what we do for a joke sometimes - to segue from the "anything that happens when jugglers get together" to the cascade - just have someone juggling three diabolos

Maybe some more accurate directions for beginning, like "make sure your gravity is set to 9.81 m/s²"


Oh, and the strangest cascade I've seen was with three acrobats who climbed on ladders, jumped off, and "juggled" themselves using two trampolines set at a slight angle


Remember - when life gives you lemons - juggle them!

Well inevitably we will just have to do what we can with what we end up getting - if someone here wants to juggle themselves and two friends, fair enough, bring it on .

I shall head on over to the juggling page at somepoint and kick things off then...

Hows the blind catches coming along?
vp

True, true. I have an event in a couple of weeks, maybe I can film some cross country diabolists in action They're elusive little creatures...

Haven't been doing my homework, I'm afraid

F8296?thread=4990356

Thanks, have subscribed But I'm now forbidden from *all* juggling, so no help, I'm afraid

Damn doctors.

You could always make an introductory opening credits-esque juggling animation... assuming you're mouse isn't too heavy?

Yeah They won't tell me what's going on and expect blind obedience.

I can give it a try... I'm no good at Flash, but what else am I going to do?

Hey Mala, how goes it?

Just noticed your Cross Country Diabolo entry got picked - nice one .

We have been inundated with messages posted to my 'Aviate the Juggling entry thread'. Its all I can do to keep up with the backlog.



On the bright side, looks like you will have plenty of time for full recovery before the clip even gets off the ground.

I thought I was subscribed to the AViate entry

I'll be away and mostly offline from February 23rd to sometime near the end of March, anyway Hopefully will have recovered by then.