Time You Enjoy Wasting Is Not Wasted Time

Here are some ideas I wasted my time working on this week. 

Shadow Coins Done Vertically on a Refrigerator with Magnets - It works, but the refrigerator needs to be completely smooth. It can't have any texture to it or the sliding makes too much noise. Because it's so easy to make marble magnets with any image you want, I figured it would be pretty simple to come up with some interesting presentation angles. And it's certainly more natural to arrange magnets on a refrigerator than coins on a floor. But I got bored after playing around with it for a little while and I think it has the disadvantage that it's less impressive that objects come together when those objects are magnets, because, well, that's what magnets do.

Altered Expectation Paint By Numbers - So, when you have a paint-by-numbers board and you look at it, you pretty much know what the final image will be.

But if you made it up of somewhat small segments you could then do a bolder outline around a picture that isn't really in the final image. So then when someone paints it (which obliterates the lines) they end up with an image they weren't expecting. Not only that, but if two numbers referred to the same color paint, things that are demarcated in the unpainted image would be part of a whole in the final image.  Does this make sense? Imagine a large grid and each number has a color it's supposed to be painted. And in the grid I've kind of used bold lines to outline an apple. So you would assume when you color it in you'll have a pixelated picture of an apple. But the color designations for each square are such that when they're filled in they actually produce a picture of a banana, but you don't know that until you color in the squares (covering up the bold lines which implied an apple.) Well, you could do a similar thing with the random shapes in a paint -by-number. 

So you could have a paint by numbers board that looks like the last supper, in its unpainted state, but when you paint it in it could be a gay orgy.

And that's actually the best idea I had for that concept, so I'm done with it for now. 

Rolled-up Sleeving - I know very little about coin magic -- at least in comparison with things I've studied extensively like card magic or mentalism. There is a coin vanish I do that I assume is standard, but I don't know what it's called. You have the coin in your right hand and pretend to take it in your left, but you actually use your thumb to slide it around your index finger and on the back of your hand where it slides into your sleeve. It looks like this from the front.

This week I was seeing how far I could roll up my sleeves and still do the vanish. I can go most of the way to my elbow now. 

My plan was to use it for the last coin in Joshua Jay's 3-coin routine, but it may be wasted effort because I don't really know how to get out of the position once the coin is there. I suppose I could brush my hands together and pull my sleeves back up, but I'd kind of like to avoid the sleeves altogether if I could. We'll see.

The "We Throw Parties, You Throw Cards" Change - I wanted a single-card color change that looked like the card changed with just the wave of a hand. And so I was playing around with the idea of having a double in your left hand, stealing the back card off in the process of showing your hands empty, and then just throwing the stolen-off-card from your right hand on top of the card in your left as your right hand passed over it. You literally just throw the card. I got it looking okay on a consistent basis but I don't have much of a use for it as I don't really do much that falls into the category of obvious sleight-of-hand like this. But it was fun to mess around with. Now I'm trying to do the Erdnase color change with my feet.