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Back from Nats

This year’s National Yo-Yo Contest was one of my favorites. Congratulations to Jake Bullock and JonRob on being the first joint recipients of the Trick Innovator of the year award. On another note, I thought this year was easily the best year for Freehand at Nats. Historically, freehand was one of the most anticipated divisions and often turned out to be one of the most disappointing.

I mentioned previously that I would be live blogging the event from my iPhone and updating it to my flickr as well as twittering the event. The twitter thing was pretty iffy, but you can see all my Nationals flickr set here.

I also recommend JD_WMWMW’s photo set, where the above photo was culled from, and Sarah and Michelle‘s sets too.

Nationals 2007

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For those about to flock…

to Nationals, sign up for a Twitter account, and let’s keep each other notified on the happenings in Chico via text messaging on your cell phone, IM, or PDA.

Twitter is a web based web site that makes it easy to communicate with your friends. The basic idea is you have 140 characters to be able to tell everybody what your doing or thinking at any time. Ordinarily it’s not the strongest branch of the new web2.o, but it is perfect for events like this, especially since it works so well with cell phones and most of us get free weekends (right?).

The first step is to go to Twitter.com and register your account, then go to http://twitter.com/devices to add your device (cell phone, IM, PDA, whatever). Once your device is registered text “track NYYC” to 40404 and you will be automatically notified whenever someone posts a Twitter containing NYYC (which stands for National yo-yo Contest… “NYYC” does not have to appear in all caps btw). This process is also described on http://twitter.com/blog/2007/09/tracking-twitter.html

Again; login to twitter, set up your mobile device, then send “track nyyc” to Twitter’s text number (40404). Afterwards, feel free to find friends to follow or send a test NYYC message.

This is a big event, at times we are all at the park, other times we are scattered around, but if we use Twitter to communicate what’s going on, we can make sure we don’t miss a thing.

For example, “NYYC triple A throwdown going down now in the parking lot at H.I.” or “OMG, @DocPop is the new NYYC champion in every single division!!!1!”.

To send a message or reply to a specific Twitterer, just type the “@” in front of their name. Mine would be @DocPop or you can also check out my Twitter page http://twitter.com/DocPop

If you are Twittering any National Yo-Yo stuff, be sure to type NYYC in the message somewhere, otherwise it won’t go out to everyone’s Twitter Tracker.

BTW, in combination with my flickr updating, this might be a good way to keep track of what’s happening in Chico this weekend.

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Big Bad Popular Doctor

I’m on the verge of the next busy season for a yo-yo pro, but I’ve already been getting some bigger gigs lately. Today I opened for Big Bad Voodoo Daddy at a huge corporate gig in Santa Clara. I snapped a quick pic of BBVD right before I took off.

My goal is to make this the best holiday season I’ve ever had. It’s already been the most productive, most creatively successful year I’ve ever had, so I have high hopes for the next 3 months.

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So cute!

Here is a picture from an Indonesian yo-yo player named Rosgana of his daughter Hasya playing with a Doctor Popular Bolt yo-yo. Isn’t it cute?

And the daughter is cute too.

Seriously, Rosgana is an awesome dude and an incredible artist. I sent him some Bolts a few months ago and they’ve started turning up in all of the Indonesian yo-yo players hands. Check out pics from a yo-yo contest in Jakarta (and more here).

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Cal States this weekend

Are you ready for this year’s California State Yo-Yo Contest? It’s this Saturday at the Exploratorium in San Francisco from 10am till 5pm.

The Chronicle article is up, you can read it online here. Be sure to check out the cool video too. I seem to have barely made it into the article, which is a shame ’cause I said some neat stuff, but that’s how this stuff always goes. I hear the photo is huge in the paper though. BTW, I’m using a B.I.S.T., that’s a new italian yo-yo.

Today, Bill is gonna be all over the local tv stations, hucking his YoYoJams at the cameramen.

The event has also garnered a few bits of press in the Alternative Weeklies, but they are the typical condescending drivel you’d expect to find in these types of papers.

I can’t wait to see everyone there!

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Putting and End to that

After a recent posting on Yoyonation’s forum regarding shmooving and beefcaking, I received an interesting email from Lorenzo Bassani from BrokenYoYos team in Milan. Lorenzo is planning on releasing a yo-yo with grooved insides and wanted to talk with me about it.

As it turns out, Lorenzo posted the idea of grooves to reduce the yo-yos inner surface back in July of 2005 on The Yo’s forum, complete with description and diagrams. Read the full thread here.

Thats 3 months earlier than Phil and I made our first shmooved yo-yo out of a Bolt.

To clarify that, Yes, Absolutely. was the first company to produce a shmooved yo-yo, but I believe it’s obvious that Mr. Bassani was beat us to the idea and deserves credit for his innovative design.

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Risky Busine$$

Anti-Yo will soon be releasing their newest yo-yo, and they have asked me to design and manufacture the bags for it.

The “Risky Busine$$” should start shipping this week. It is an updated version of “The Busine$$” that is made from X (wherein X represents some ungodly expensive rare metal that I can’t recall the name of).

The yo-yo holsters are of course made from raw denim with a red and white selvage line. To match the selvage, I used red thread and white buttons. I actually learned how to make button holes just for this project, and Shan was really cool and hand stitched the buttons on to help save time. These holsters use a nickel plated “scissor snap”, the same as you would find on a high quality wallet chain.

On a similar but different note, check out my blog entry regarding the raw denim messenger bags I’m producing.

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Results from the World Yo-Yo Mod Contest

In case you missed it, be sure to check out Eric Wolff‘s fantastic photo set from this year’s World Mod Contest (as well as his excellent summary of the entries here).

Eric, a wonderful yo-yo modder in his own right, has been one of the Mod Contest’s judges since it’s first year and posted a brief summary of this year’s entries here.

From all accounts, Shinobu Konmoto‘s “Nostalgia” was the clear winner and perhaps one of the most amazing entries the contest has ever seen. Shinobu’s creation was a scratch built recreation of a vintage car wheel. The outer rim is connected to the ball bearing hubs via spokes.

Shinobu (or “s.kon”) has been one of the contest’s top modders since 2004 with entries like the Carbon Battler mod, the bicycle bell based Ting Aling, a monster truck tribute to Big Foot, and his leather covered magnesium yo-yo the Revlover. If you get the chance, check out his Coca Cola can yo-yo, his yo-yos made from yo-yo strings, and his recap of the Japanese mod contest.

One of this years most innovative mods came from Yoshitaro Kudo who added free spinning out rings to the rims of his yo-yo for longer palm grinds.

Takahiko Hasegawa entered a yo-yo called “Buddah’s Bell” which I believe he also used in his Artistic Performance entry. From what I have been told, at the beginning of his routine, Taka threw a sleeper with his yo-yo than hit it with a stick. The entire performance was based around the sound that his yo-yo made. The vibration of the bell was probably affected greatly by the spinning motion, with only surface air friction and a piece of yo-yo string dampening the sound. That must have been cool.

I thought Dave Poyzer‘s Kickside/Purpleheart wood/Zombie was a mod that really captured the modder spirit. Dave took the best attributes of different materials and put ’em all together. The metal Zombie rings for outer rim weight, wood for smooth-ness, and the a celcon Kickside hub for working with YoYoJam’s awesome response system and bearing set up.

Thanks Eric for posting your pics. Check out his photo sets from 2006, 2004, 2003, and 2002.

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Bizarre yo-yo listings on eBay from China.

On a recent eBay search, I stumbled upon a seller named penptech. I first noticed that penptech had a slim metallic yo-yo with slight butterfly shape and rubber rims. This bizarre yo-yo was listed as a “Metallic Missile” and was further described as “This is the flagship in Yomega’s High Performance fleet”. Most striking was the yo-yo’s low price; $.99.

I’ve seen many scams on eBay, but this item seemed legit. Shipping was about $7 and there was good buyer feedback, so I went ahead and bought two of these “Metallic Missiles” and one of their “Power Brain” yo-yo.

A few weeks later, the yo-yos arrived. I couldn’t believe. Yeah, they are totally cheap POS’s, but it wasn’t a scam. One of the metallic missile knock offs was missing it’s bearing, which wasn’t a big deal since the first thing I did was but Buzzon SPR guts in it anyway. The Power Brain knock off was just a cheap ball bearing butterfly yo-yo. Not great, but worth 8 bucks. To be honest, the Metallic Missiles actually play really well with SPR kits in them. Do yourself a favor and pick up some of the remaining stock. You could also feel free to buy the size 44 Valentino Jacket for me while you are at it. It’s only $.99!