Category: Uncategorized

In my time spent yo-yoing, I’ve created a few tricks and a few mods. In my mind, if a trick catches on, it’s a success… but I guess if I create a trick that doesn’t catch on, but I love, it would also be a success.

In terms of mods, I guess I feel pretty much the same way. My mods are mostly created for me, but when they catch on, I’m doubly happy. A few years ago though, Spintastics and a few other companies started releasing “beefcaked” yo-yos.

Beefcaking was something I created for modding Vipers. Viper bearings are tiny, but if you put two side by side, you can get some great play out of it. Beefcaking was a total fad mod, but when companies started using me technique and the name I had given it too, well I felt a little cheated. I mean if someone would have simply called and asked, I would have said sure.

What I’m getting at, I suppose, is just a reminder that if you are basing something you manufacture on the works of someone else, it’s a good idea to at least let them know about it. Give them credit, maybe even offer them a prototype, or a discounted price or something.

It’s just sort of common sense, not just in yo-yoing, but through any other hobbies your life may come across.

If anyone would like to make a small run of beefcaked or shmooved yo-yos, feel free to contact me and at least say “Hi, do you mind if we do this?” Of course, if you are just doing a single mod or something you totally don’t need to let me know, but I’d love it if you feel like sharing the results with me.

Reach me at doc at doctorpopular.com

Oh, and Dave… where’s my Save Deth DVD? I’ve been getting emails and instant messages about my Moebius section, and I’m dying to see it for myself.

I accumulated a lot of new items at The Missouri State Yo-Yo Contest. This is some of it.

Clockwise from left;

Drown Radio signage from my show.

MOYO tag on my Blackspot sneaker.

Louisville Slugger clicker from Rick.

Dert by Russ Andert. Traded for a something something. I love it.

Baby Dert, bought from Chris. First yo-yo I’ve bought in a long long time.

Baby Dert, traded for a something something. I love the Baby Dert, it’s totally my favorite new yo-yo of the year.

MOYO cufflinks. Sterling silver with the date of the event stamped on the back.

Modded trucker hat. With a MOYO pin over the printed logo.

The event was a blast, I saw lots of old friends from my early days in the midwest and did tons of climbing in the City Museum.

Sphere of bonding.

Today is the last day of the 28 Days of Yo blogging project, but that obviously doesn’t mean it will be the last thing I ever post so if you’d like to keep up to date on my blogging, I suggest you subscribe to the RSS feed.

An RSS feed is a way to see whenever a site use has updated or not. In order to use the feed though you’ll need an RSS aggregator. I use Newsgator, it works similar to web based email but for keeping track of sites. To get started with a subscription, just sign in to your RSS aggregator, then go to add feeds and add this url:

http://doctorpopular.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

RSS really simplifies my web surfing and it’s becoming a standard tool on most sites. In fact many blog and web 2.0 sites have automatic RSS generators that the site owners might not even know about. Many sites feature RSS “subscribe now” buttons that you simply have to click to add to your aggregator. Here are a few more feed urls to add.

http://www.yoyonation.com/blog/feed/
http://www.yoyoing.com/blog/?feed=rss2
http://www.schalicto.com/feed
http://www.docpop.org/feed
http://www.drownradio.com/feed

You can even use RSS feeds to maintain a search on services like eBay, Craigslist, and Amazon. For example:

http://rss.api.ebay.com/ws/rssapi?FeedName=SearchResults&siteId=0&language=en-US&output=RSS20&catref=C6&sabfmts=1&saprclo=&saprchi=&ftrv=1&ftrt=1&fsop=1&fsoo=1&from=R10&satitle=super+sellout&sacat=-1&saobfmts=insif&_trksid=m37

Of course if you are using Firefox you can subscribe to a live bookmark feed too, but I don’t thing live bookmarks are nearly as usefull as a web based aggregator.

Blah blah blah, hey just think… if you subscribe to my feed… you’ll be notified every time I write on my blog… about getting you to subscribe to my feed… so that you can be notified… every time I write about subscribing to my blog. It keeps going on and on my friends.

If you know any other rss feed urls, post ’em below.

FYI, I have been extremely busy over the last two days working on this project. I’ve obviously had to take a break from the 28 Days project, but I will begin blogging again tomorrow (Friday).

This time of year is a busy season for yo-yo shows and I’ve been very fortunate to really take advantage of it this year.

In fact, I’ve been performing so much lately that I’ve reblistered both of my middle fingers. This is the first time in 5 years I’ve gotten blisters on my well calloused fingers.

With my recent performances, I’ve decided to amp up my two handed yo-yo skills. I started with some modified Raiders, but got bored and decided to dig up all my old Double A yos to practice with.

In honor of this recent loop-mania, I’ve decided to focus on looping yo-yos throughout the week.

Enjoy.

Sorry if my last post seem ed a bit “rambly”. I had a 5 hour yo-yo gig that day, so I wanted to write it in the morning (in case I wouldn’t have time later that day to blog).

Speaking of that gig, I was absolutely thrilled to wake up this morning and not be sore. Lucky me, I was really worried I might have overworked myself.

During my last visit to Minneapolis, Josh asked me to try one of his new yo-yos which happened to have Bungee String on it. Bungee String is the creation of Mathew Thoemke (aka YoYoFargo) and is created out of nylon blends. Mathew sent me a sample many months ago, and I thought it was fun but not really my style. When you first try it out, Bungee String is extremely stretchy which makes eli hops really fun, but consistent play is a bit difficult. After a few hours I put the string away and didn’t really mess with it again. Josh, on the other hand, kept playing with his Bungee for a month before I tried it.

I usually change string every half an hour of solid play, but Bungee String actually gets better with age. It retains it’s smoothness, but the elasticity goes away, making it play more like an ordinary piece of string. As a yo-yo performer, who often does day long walk around performances, this string is ideal, so I pulled my piece of Bungee String out yesterday morning and used it all day. Not only did it keep me from constantly changing my string, but I’d also credit it with preventing any new string burns.

I believe the only place to get Bungee String from is Joe Mitchell’s Train and Beanie Baby store in Deleware, let me know if I’m wrong though.

BTW, my eBay auctions will all be ending within the next 24 hours.

I sell a lot of modified Bolt’s through this site, but I always like to help teach folks how to modify their own yo-yos, so I’ve published How to Mod a Bolt Yo-Yo on Instructables.com.

Any feedback is always appreciated. I’d love to see more yo-yo instructables.

For those of you in the Bay Area, I’ll be doing a yo-yo demo and a yo-yo workshop at the Maker Faire this weekend. If you are at the Faire, stop by and say hi.

I have been booked for a performance at this year MONDO in Minneapolis.

MONDO is this nice big juggling festival that happens this time of year in the Twin Cities. Unfortunately this will take me out of the Bay Area during BAC, but if you live in Northern California, you should still be sure to catch that.

I’ll be teaching a few workshops and performing on the Main Stage for MONDO’s open to the public event. I will also have yo-yos, comics, and clothes for sale and will hopefully be running a Yolympics contest.

Instructables.com is a wonderful tool for “showing what you make and how others can make it”, but I also believe that it could also become a tool used by yo-yoers to share what they do and how others can do it as well.

I started with a basic trick, Rock The Baby, just to try it out as an instructable.

Now I have just finished uploading all the details you really need to do the Washing Machine. Check it out HERE.

The Washing Machine was created about 7 years ago, and it’s still one of the neatest looking tricks in my arsenal. It’s an offstring trick, that doesn’t require you to start offstring. In fact you can do it in the middle of a normal one handed performance with very little set up.

Adding this trick to the website is more than just an exercise in how useful instructables.com can be for yo-yoers, it’s also an attempt to make one of my favorite tricks more accessible. The Washing Machine intimidates many players, but I’m telling you that any intermediate player can do the basics of the trick (removing the yo-yo and putting it back on).

So please check out my instructable, try it out, and let me know if any of the steps are confusing or could be worded better.

REEDIT:
Alright, I just found out there are a few different versions of this Cartoon Network video.
One is only 1:15 long and I appear at the end doing the “Martini”.
The other is 3:15 and I get a few good quotes.
So… I’m still trying to catch the good version. But I can’t watch all that anime for one more second.
Below is the shorter version.