Life Savers and The Paper Engine
I am really staring to miss my magic library. When I worked for Tony Eng at his shop “Tony’s Trick and Joke Shop” I collected many magic books over the years. I would end up spending all my pay on magic stuff and books. Now living in Japan the majority of my magic library is still in Canada and I wish I had here! However at times I have my mother send me some of the lighter books to me. Next time when I head back to Canada I will bring an extra suitcase and fill it up. This week I ask my mother to send me Michael Weber’s Life Savers and Aaron Fisher’s The Paper Engine. I asked my mother to send these two because one, they are not so thick and heavy and second they have a lot of great material. I want my Tarbell Course, my Pallbearer collection books, Paul Harris Arts of Astonishment series plus many more but they are so heavy! For now I will read through these books, as I have not read them over in about 7 years. They should fill my recent need to read magic books for the next few weeks.
Back in Canada I loved having my good close by because whenever I had an idea, I would go searching through them for ideas, and material that would fit the idea I had and I really miss that now. I remember when I would read a magic book and it would reference another book I would to then next to get a hold of those.
One other book I would love to have with me here is my reprinted copy of Greater Magic. That book is a old but it is a goldmine of information. I think I need to start planing another trip home partly so I can bring these great books back with me! Until then all I can do is say thank you mom for putting up with my requests and having you search through my library for the books I ask for!
Aaron
MobileRSS
If you are like me and read a lot of Internet sites keeping track of them all can be hard. Living in Japan the Internet is my primary source for English related content on magic, technology and news and I follow a lot of websites. So it has always been a challenge for me to organize how I go through all the content I keep track of. The system I use now has saved me a lot of time and kept me up to date on all the information I enjoy reading. Over the years I have tried various RSS readers but now I just use Google Reader. I can make folders to keep track of subjects, and also I am able to easily share any articles I find on twitter etc. It is like my own newspaper custom made for me everyday. You can also follow other people who have google reader set up and easily read any interesting articles that they share. I like the star feature where I can star the ones I want to keep and go back to them anytime I want very easily. Along with the regular Google Reader I use mobileRSS on my iPhone to keep updated when I am not at home. Once I read an article from mobileRSS it marks it as read on Google Reader as well. It also has all of the great sharing features of the Google version. Combining both of these has been great for me. I am able to keep track of all the sites I like and I like a lot so this keeps me organized and informed. I also like to share cools stuff as well. You can see my shared articles form Google Reader here. If you have any other great ways that you use to keep track of your favourite sites please let me know!
Aaron
My MacBookPro
It has now been over a month and a half since I made the switch from Windows to Mac. In December I just got tired of Windows which I have been using since Windows 3.1. Over the years I enjoyed it but recently I just wanted things to work. So this December I got so frustrated with Windows I did the big jump and ordered a MacBookPro. I am not an Apple Fan boy but having an iPhone helped me make the decision. Another point is if I need to I can run Windows as well on the MacBookPro so I always have that option to use it if I never need to. Well so do I like my new Mac? Well yes very much so. Honestly it is the best computer I have ever used. It has also increased my productivity, work flow, and much more. I am happy that I have made the switch. I wish though that Google soon updates Google Chrome so that I can use extensions with it. I also want gears to work with Chrome for Mac. I like Google Chrome and so far it is the only downside to my new Mac is that the Mac Google Chrome development seems slow. As you can see in the photo when I am at home I can easily hook the Mac to my 22 inch screen and it works perfectly. For me switching to Mac was a good choice and so far a very positive experience.
Aaron
Magic Pot
Today I went into Takamatsu the capital city of Kagawa Prefecture for a show I had to do at a Cafe. The show was well, interesting as I thought when I originally booked it ( I knew it was going to be a challenge). Was not easy but went over well. 25 years of experience got me through this one. The show was well received but I was burnt out. I’ll leave this story for another day. Anyways, I wanted to visit the magic shop in Tamakatsu but it was closed. I had some time before the show so I went by. I always seem to get there when it is closed. Eventually I will get to the shop when it is open. Magic Pot is the magic company here on Shikoku that puts on the Shikoku Magic Convention as well as many other magic events and run the magic bar chain “Tejinaya” on Shikoku and the Chugoku area of Japan. This year the convention is in Takamatsu again and will be held in May. Once I know more information about this years convention I will post it! I hope they get the same venue as last year because it was very good. I also dropped by one of the big book stores there and WOW they had a lot of Japanese translations of influential magic books usually found only at magic shops such as the Card College series, books by Derek Dingle and a whole lot more. When I have more time going to go back there and look through them all. Now I am going to have a hot bath and head to bed!
Aaron
I know this is mostly a magic blog but I am also a fan of tech so I wanted to jump on the bandwagon and blog about the new Apple iPad and write about some of my thoughts and how it relates to me in Japan. I am not an Apple fanboy but I am a recent “convert” to the Mac platform after years of being frustrated with Windows. This December I gave up Windows and bought a MacBook Pro. After over a year of using the iPhone I was convinced. Anyways back to the iPad. Firstly I have seen many people complain about what it lacks the biggest being a camera for pictures and or for video conferencing. Now lets go to what Steve Jobs talked about at the iPad presentation. It is a device between the smart phone a regular computer, a kind of bridge. Smart phones and computers have cameras so why need a third? I know, I know, people said this about cells phones a few years ago. But imagine holding the iPad out to do a video conference, your arms would get tired and the video would be all bouncy like bad home videos. It would only work well if it was on a kickstand. So it seems to use this tablet this way is perhaps awkward and not so elegant. This is the reason I see for it not having a camera as well as keeping the price down and the device light and thin. Remember you have to think of this as a new device not as a net book, nor a laptop, nor as a tablet PC using a normal desktop OS. This is something new easy to use and something convenient when you want t relax or are sitting on a plane, train, or bus. I can also think of many business applications for this device for record keeping.
Ok what about here in Japan and would I buy it. Well I might, the problem is the Japanese iTunes store has no movies or TV shows, one of the main features of the iPad. Of course you can convert current DVD etc. but that takes the beauty and ease and loses the point of the system. It also looks as if there won’t be a iBook store any time soon as well. A work around for this is of course to use the Amazon Kindle app for the iPhone. It seems for me anyway that until the Japanese iTunes store gets upgraded with movies and TV’s shows and gets the book store in Japan I don’t see myself using this device soon. I do however see how I can it use at show venues for setting up and prepping my show but I just use my iPhone and my MacBook Pro for now. I do hope to see it get these features here with cheap 3g connections then I will probably pick it up.
Written on my iPhone.
Aaron
Terushita Is the Terminator
Last Saturday (Jan. 16, 2010) I had to goto Takamatsu and it gave me a chance to get involved in the Shikoku Magic Friends Magic Club again. Back in Canada I was involved and enjoyed going to the Victoria Magic Circle since I was 16 years old. Before that I was in the SYM group in Victoria. It was great to be and involved in a magic club. We planned out activies and goals that we want to achieve over this year. One of our main goals is to help motivate and mentor some of the younger members. As well as work on increasing our creative and performance skills. In March we will hold our public show and that should be fun. After the meeting we headed out to my friend Terushita’s magic bar Intiki Magician. When we arrived Terushita showed us his true identity as the Terminator. We relaxed there for a while and then Shinnosuke and I headed back to Ehime where we live. During our drive back Shinnosuke talked about some magic projects we will work on during this year and arrived home. It is always great to connected and work with other magicians. I am looking forward to the next meeting in February where I am conducting the main part of the meeting. Should be great! Once Shinnotsuke and I work out details for one of our projects I will be posting about it on here . More details to come!
Aaron
The Party Magic by Hiro Sakai
If you listend to my last Magic AudioBoo you will know about the magic trick a week from a magic book challenge I put out. I have already started this with other books but today I decided to drop by the local library to see what they had. They had a few basic kid’s magic books but I came across this one called The Party Magic by Hiro Sakai. Hiro Skai is a brillant Japanese Magician who recently performs under the name Dr. Leon. This books seems to have been written for beginners who just want to be able to learn some tricks for parties etc. But there seemed to be some cool effects in it. It also came with a DVD with the presentations of the effects. I havent watched the DVD or read through the book yet. I will probably not use anything from it but I will use it to work on my Japanese presentations as I can learn useful phrases from reading books like this. When I was around 9 or 10 years old I constantly took out magic books from my school’s library and the local library and I learned a lot. Anyway, You never know what kind of gold you will find at your library so head out to your local library and check out what magic books they have!
Aaron
Shrine Visit Jan 1, 2010
Happy New Year 2010! Looking forward towards this year! I hope everyone had a great 2009. Everyone keep up the magic! I hope that this year I can keep my self productive and complete a bunch of magic projects I need to get started. Most of all I want to interact with different magicians from all over the world so please send me messages I would love to make a connection with you this year! Once again everyone have
Shikoku Magic Club Street Magic Show
As I write this there us just about 14 hours left for 2009 here in Japan. This his been a great year. One thing I am glad is that I got back into Social Networking. The reason why I did it was I missed the magic community back in Canada. I am involved in the magic community here on Shikoku but at the same time I missed doing some magic discussions in English. My Japanese is ok but when I try to talk about magic theory my meaning in Japanese goes out the window. So getting back to blogging here and talking with people on Facebook, Twitter has been great and keeping up with magic pod casts makes me feel like I am back in the loop. I was glad to discover that IBM publishes a digital version of the Linking Ring and SAM does the same with the MUM. Now I can keep up with the magician community news. I feel with all of this I am getting a really good international view of the magic community and I like this! I have reconnected with some old friends and made a lot of new ones. Now I am looking forward to a great 2010. Happy New Year Everyone!
Aaron
Festival Show
I hope everyone had a great Christmas holiday last week. Now I am getting ready for the new year. Well I made a big change I switched from a Windows computer to Mac. And so far I feel I made the right choice and not sure why I didn’t change before. I have new magic projects that I wanted to get a start on but now with the new computer I will be able to get them going. I will be doing more AudioBoo’s as well I will be adding more video content in the near future. Now with the Mac I will be able to edit much better videos. Over the next week I will be setting up and getting my camera equipment set up. It will also be a better system to help me rehearse. I should have a new AudioBoo up today or tomorrow. I wish you all a Happy New Year!
Aaron
