Thursday 25 September 2008

when the chimes end, pick up your gun...

Once again, for some unknown reason, my mind has taken me back to “For a Few Dollars More”, or more specifically the beautiful ending music with the watch chimes.

A thought then occurred, what a fantastic thing to own. A pocket watch that plays the chimes. There must be a couple of companies that produce these things under licence? No. No there’s not.

But how difficult could it be? Okay not to produce a wind up mechanical version, but how about one that plays via a chip. I know that the chip exists because I’ve used it on a previous project (musical door opening that plays applauses a la Happy Days).

So it’s just a matter of finding a pocket watch with a nice deep body to it, plus a small , battery powered watch face to sit on top. All seems rather do-able.

Thursday 11 September 2008

why cards aren't shopping lists

Well blabbery has been someone silent as of late. Perhaps its been my month long poker tournament that the voices in my head have been playing that has been so damn distracting because none of them can even see their cards inside my head because its dark in there. So for an entire bloody month all I've heard is "I think I've got a pair" and "I raise" and occasionally "um, 5 cards please". This is a massive waste of time for all involved but has at least been distracting enough for those little cretins that I haven't felt the need to let them bleed on to my blog as they have been allowed to in the past.

So instead I have been able to work on more sensible things. These sensible things tend to go awry because I just start writing out the current hands in the upstairs poker game in to everything I wrote. Shopping lists often ended with me asking a poor shop slave where the "5 of spades are kept". In most cases I got ignored, though on one occasion I got shown to the sandwich department and left until the store shut.

Its a very weird thing to be left in a supermarket by yourself with nothing but a deck of cards for a shopping list. After giving up any real hope on finding an aisle named Full house, you just start walking. First in a very random direction, but eventually in the more front to back of the shop style method that is so strictly followed by trolley weilding patrons. Soon I found myself following individual people, just letting them stay close enough that I could read which flavour Hienz beans they were considering purchasing, but far enough away that they could hear my constant out-loud narration of the location of all 52 cards in the deck.

Eventually I got to a section that had packs of playing cards and I proceeded to open every pack and remove the 9 of diamonds from each one and put it in the back pockets of passers by. This was part of my rather temporary, but undeniably flawless attempt at the world's slowest card trick/con. The plan was to digest 10 packs of cards in front of the whole supermarket, and then declare that I wanted some desert. On everyone checking their pockets for cake, 10 lucky winners would then find their cards, which I had written their particular choice of Hienz beans on the back. Celebrating, the store patrons would hoist me on to their shoulders and carry me out of the store chanting diamond 9! diamond 9!