almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea

Starring the character I write most often, Edward Montecron, gentleman thief. Monty to his friends. Also Molly, his long-suffering PA.

~~~

“Who are you phoning?” asked Molly, looking up from her computer monitor.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” Monty replied, flicking through the telephone directory he’d been carrying as he walked into her office. “Ah. There we go. Mind if I use your phone?”

Monty picked up the telephone and started pressing buttons, checking against the number on the page. Molly waved her hand for him to continue. They were his phones after all.

He cradled the handset on his shoulder. “Saw something interesting on the side of a truck this morning. Thought I’d give them a call… Hello?”

Molly sighed. Dear God, she thought. Was it really that time of the month already? She continued typing up her resume.

Monty stuck his tongue out at her, then returned his attention to the call. “Hello. Yes. Diamond Relocations? I saw one of your trucks this morning and have a little job for you. The address? Zenn Industries HQ, Thomasson Plaza. Yes, the centre of town. Are you free today?”

Molly rolled her eyes, clicked on save, then got up and went over to the coffee machine. She waved a mug at Monty.

“Excellent. What? How many boxes? Just the one.” He grinned, twirling his yellow pencil around in his fingers, nodding at Molly’s offer. “Very small. About three inches square. The Mortens-Haag Diamond. He keeps it in a safe on the thirty-seventh floor. Do you provide security or should …”

He held the handset away from his ear, a look of glee on his face. “Got further with that lot! I wonder…” He resumed flicking through the pages of the directory.

“Don’t you get bored of doing that?” Molly asked.

“Never, my dear girl. Never. Aha! Here we go…”

She poured him a large mug of something dangerously caffeinated, and leaned over his shoulder to see what he’d circled with his pencil.

“You’re not…”

His grin was the only answer she needed. She sat down, plugged in her headphones and cranked the volume up. Monty ignored her and dialled.

“Hello? Yes. Twenty-Four Hour Recovery? Saw one of your trucks this morning, and have *just* the job for you. I need last Tuesday back, it’s a bit of a blur…”

stay with it past the first minute. This guy is *really* good.

I once heard a theory about juggling. Juggling three balls, on a scale of 1 to ten, ranks about a three or a four.

Juggling four balls, up to about 8 out of ten.

Juggling *five* balls, about 80.

That kind of crystal ball manipulation? We’re into thousands.

I can teach you to juggle three balls in an hour or two^[1]. A couple of hours of decent practice more, and you’ll be at the point where you can impress non-jugglers with your newly-found skills, and be thinking about doing some tricks.

Give it a week, and you’ll get four balls – after all, it’s just two balls in one hand, in each hand. Bit of practice on your weaker hand, and you’ll get there.

Juggling five is an order of magnitude more difficult – throws are necessarily higher, and have to be far more precise as you just don’t have the time to constantly readjust the pattern. And picking up five is hard on the back. :-)

Crystal ball manipulation? It’ll take you weeks to get even remotely smooth with a simple ball-over-the-hand. And that’s with your good hand. Doing the spinny four-ball pyramid? Hard.

Doing what the guy in the video does? Years of practice.

Beautiful to watch though. One day I hope to be half as good as that.

Now, where did I put my crystal ball?

^[1]No, really I can. You might be shaky on it, but it’s perfectly possible, assuming you can throw and catch one ball from one hand to the other.

Climb On!

Why geeks should climb (via Boing Boing

Indian Mallakhamb Gymnastics:

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Pulsate

Groovy music creation by clicking and making circles. Oddly addictive

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hopefully it’ll work this time!