I absolutely love Shaun the Sheep, the latest animation TV series from Aardman (you probably know Wallace & Gromit).
It has that universal (Disney’esque?) appeal both to children and adults, because everyone finds different bits and pieces funny. And, of course, like all the Aardman stuff I’ve seen, it is extremely well produced.
Yes yes, I know what I wrote a couple of days ago about insert-your-favourite-mainstream-hyped-social-network-here…
Still, today I registered my band Pretty Good Privacy as a band on MySpace.
So, if you want to check out a couple of videos or MP3s, or just want to say hi, take a look.
In the next days, there should be more photos, MP3s and videos online (in case anybody cares).
Durch das Video aus einem Supermarkt in der Stadt Jesi in der mittelitalienischen Region Marken wissen die Ermittler erstmals, wie der Mann aussieht. Die Bestohlenen können sich immer nur an den Satz “Schauen Sie mir in die Augen” erinnern – und danach an nichts mehr.
Die Aufnahmen zeigen den pummeligen bärtigen Mann, wie der die Kassiererin offenbar um das Wechseln einer 100-Euro-Note bittet. Dann flüstert er ihr etwas ins Ohr. Sie öffnet die Kasse, er räumt sie aus, sie sitzt währenddessen untätig da. Dann spaziert der Mann lächelnd davon.
So, a man “hypnotizes” the cashier in a supermarket to let him rob her cash.
Reminds me of this masterpiece of Derren Brown – Paying with paper (in NYC!)
Note: I remember Derren writing about leaving misses and accidents in his shows, so – in a strange way – somehow seeing how he fails makes the rest of the clip even more “convincing”…)
Experienced magicians know to watch out for blinking – not because they check their audience when to get away with a sneaky move (of course they do that, too, but that’s a different story), but the tendency to blink yourself when you want to hide a special moment.
I became aware of my own blinking when practicing the “Pass” and watching myself in the mirror – it’s a pretty standard, yet difficult to do card move – after years (literally – I think I started in 2003) of practice, I’m still not happy with my handling.
In the delicate moment where everything happens, I blinked “automatically”, unconsciously trying to fool myself that everything looked innocent and sweet, when actually some cards flashed.
Now, of course, like many other moves, especially the Pass has to be done on the offbeat. But still, my blinking in that situation reminded me of a kid covering her eyes and thinking that now nobody can see her. Even worse, I was not really aware of it. (Note: recording your moves with a video camera might help to get some more objective views on your handling. Recording your kid in that situation and showing them the tape afterwards is a different story…)
Weeks after my discovery, I noticed the same behaviour when entering my PIN code into a Bankomat (ATM) – I blinked. Usually, I cover the keypad from other people’s view anyway, but still I was amused.
Watch out for your own blinking in similar situations!
From Rich Hightower’s Blog :
My immune system is being unkind to me again this weekend. My coughing fits had gotten so severe that my physician has seen fit to prescribe something unprecedented to the scope of over-the-counter medication.
Who would have thought that a moment’s respite from expectorating one’s own blood could find purchase in codeine-laced promethazine, the creativity flowing forth from one’s fingers like butterflies upon each keystroke? Every moment now transpires into an out of body experience, the luminescence coalescing freely from an LCD backdrop on a disembodied sensation, trying to discern the interpretive numina of the garbage truck ever-present outside my bedroom window. Flash. Flash. Lift. And it’s gone, further down the dark, to attend to another yet lonely garbage can. I can only weep at the significance.
The sum of my being is available over IM and phone and email, although it is unlikely that we will commune on the same plane of understanding until my medication has metabolized sufficiently out of my biological venue. (…which does not exist in my current frame of reference – the dangerous ramblings of Descartes loom ominously at the fringes of my attentions, all material existence is possibly a malicious manifestation of some mischievous higher power, or with some degree of enforcement of a supreme effort of one’s self epistemology, transgresses too closely to a soliptic weltanschauung of Rhonda Byrne proportions.)
Priceless.