Goals for the year and rabbits in hats.

Everyone seems to be doing it, so why not me too right?

At the start of every year, people make new year's resolutions. Well, not me. I just set some goals for myself.

So I thought I'd write a blog talking about that. And maybe what I got up to for new years eve. After all, this is a blog about my life, so why not include life event things right? Who knows what might come out onto this page.. er.. file?.. Post! That's what they're called.

So new years eve.. I'm not much of a party guy these days. I don't like big crowds (with the exception of gigs), I really don't like being around a bunch of really drunk people (again, I can make exceptions at gigs), and I don't like clubs and the music that's played at them. Basically, to me going to a club is essentially me going somewhere full of people I have nothing in common with who I don't want to be around, doing things I don't like doing and listening to crap music. Not my idea of a good time.

So for the third year in a row I think, I went to my best friend's place. He was having a small party, which suits me much better.
Really there's not a lot to tell.. we had some food, told a lot of stories and jokes, ribbed each other, played some trivia, and had a great time.

Oh, actually, one highlight for me was performing a magic trick.

Now I know what this blog is going to be about. Goals, and magic.

I got really interested in learning magic a few months ago, after seeing this video (this is my first attempt at embedding something so if it doesn't work, i'll put the link at the end of the blog)

This is a magician called Shawn Farquhar on a show Penn and Teller did called Fool Us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZ2ebs9F1ek

So after seeing that trick (and watching it probably 15 times), I found myself wanting to learn how to do card tricks. I've always liked magic...my mum tells me I used to do bad card tricks when I was a kid, and I vaguely remember getting a magic set at some point too. I love the performance side of it, and the technical skill involved especially interests me. And, if you watch that trick, it is just about flawless. Even a few months later, learning all that I've learned about sleight of hand, I have no idea how he does what he does. (Neither do Penn and Teller though, so I don't feel too bad)

So I decided to buy a couple of decks of cards. A couple quickly became a couple of dozen. It's become something of an addiction to me. I didn't realise at first that there were collectors of playing card decks, but I've quickly become one. I have around 40 decks at this point. The great thing about them is that even though they're not that readily available in Australia, the decks aren't too expensive. Sure, some can get up to $20 and above, but in general they range from about $5 to $15, so I've spent a little bit of money on them, but there are much worse things to spend money on.

My favourites in my collection at this point are the few black decks that I have. They're incredible looking. I also have a deck where the hearts and diamonds are coloured blue instead of red, which I love.

What I've found though, and this may sound like a strange comparison, is that learning sleight of hand and card magic, and cardistry, is a lot like learning how to play the guitar.

I know what you're thinking.. No it's not! Guitars have strings!

You're absolutely right. But, learning card sleights is all about muscle memory, exactly the same way that learning to play the guitar is. For example, I can remember when I first started learning guitar, changing chords was almost impossible to do fluently. In the same way, learning to riffle shuffle cards is all about muscle memory. When I first started trying to shuffle the cards like this (the way magicians do), I was fumbling all over the place and found it almost impossible.. and even thought about giving it up. But, I persevered, and mastered it. I've focused more on learning techniques to start with rather than just jumping into learning tricks, though I have a few simple tricks under my belt, including the one I performed for my friends at new year's... where I turned a red card blue.

This leads me into the other subject I wanted to talk about in this post, being my goals for the year.

1. Get better at card magic, and grow my collection of cards.

This one is pretty simple.. I'd like to be able to do more than one trick convincingly, and get much better at the sleight of hand stuff. And obviously buy more cards.

2. Confidence.

I have this weird lack of self confidence. I want to change that. It's mainly with people I don't know, my friends and family, and people that I'm comfortable with, I have no problem being confident and outgoing. But, as my single friends and readers will know, it's a very different story when it's someone you're meeting as a possible romantic prospect. I need to figure out a way for my confidence I have with my friends to come through when meeting new people.

3. Maintain my exercise and diet and lose more weight.

Another simple one. I want to lose at least another 10 kilos this year, and hopefully more like 20. If I stick fairly closely to my diet and keep walking every day, it's going to happen.

4. Get at least one tattoo.

I tweeted at Kevin Smith telling him I was going to get one of his quotes tattooed on me and he favourited the tweet, so I have to do that at some point. Oh.. and just so you don't think i'm getting a ton of words put on me, the quote is "Why not?" The full quote is in this picture:

5. Find a new drummer for my band.

This one is a "has to happen soon" goal, as we've got some gigs tentatively booked in the coming months. Pretty simple really.

6. Get my band to greater heights

We have some goals in our band, some of which we've already achieved, but we still have a lot left to do. This year we'll release our first cd, have our first merchandise available to buy, and play some shows interstate.

Some other goals I want us to achieve are to get played on the radio (if we can find a radio station that plays punk), get into some magazines or so some kind of interviews, and there are some bands we want to play with, and have hear our music somehow as well.


That's about it really, I mean there are things that are a little out of my control like start a new relationship, or make some money.. but those 6 are my main goals for the year.



Oh, one last thing, I'm thinking as I said in a previous post, of starting a video blog. Let me know if you like this idea, and I'll see what I can come up with.

That's it for this installment. Thanks for reading.