Mynd Hed
03-11-2004, 02:13 PM
Just to lighten the mood a little-- anybody here happen to enjoy the fine art of the yo-yo?
I recently rediscovered my love of the immortal spinning string top thanks to a boring day at work. When you're on register on a Sunday morning at a video store, you inevitably reach that point when you've checked in all the videos in the drop box and cleaned the counters as many times as could conceivably useful, yet you've still got no one in your line and nothing to do. So I bought meself a yo-yo to pass the time while waiting for some early riser to buy a newspaper.
I used to yo a lot when I was a kid, and it's been slowly coming back to me to the point where I'm probably better at it now than I was then.
Probably helps that I REALLY like this particular yo-yo, too-- it's a shiny red Duncan Profire, kind of a faux-butterfly style, with a metal axle. I'm a big fan of metal axles over the wooden variety-- they're more durable, obviously, and I find they also tend to have a little less friction on the string, which makes for easy sleeping even with a relatively tight loop. This one kind of makes a hissing sound like a cricket when it sleeps, which I like-- just gives me one more indication if my sleeper is about to go dead.
I've worn through three strings in the past month-- I need to see if any toy stores in the area sell big packs of yo-yo strings, so far I've been getting new ones by rummaging through my closet, but I think I've finally found the last one left over from back in the day.
I bought a book of tricks to practice, too-- the Klutz Yo-Yo Book, I'm a big fan of Klutz Press.
Rock the Cradle was one of my favorites from back in the day, I picked that one right back up again.
I initially had the hardest time figuring out Around the World, but now it's just about as easy to me as the old "up-and-down," I can do a double with little trouble and pull off a triple with pretty good regularity if my wrist is feeling limber.
I can generally manage a good eight or ten feet while Walking the Dog as long as the loop is loose enough.
Right now I'm working on perfecting my Loop-the-Loop, I seem to have trouble with that one-- my hand always seems to want to turn it into an Around the World, or else I fall prey to the dreaded off-center throw which results in a wobbling, unstable yo-yo.
I'm also working on my Around the Corner-- I've managed it more than a few times, but my accuracy isn't up to the point where I can pull it off with regularity-- and Hop the Fence (which should be an easy variation on Loop-the-Loop, but for some reason isn't).
What about you? Do you yo-yo?
I recently rediscovered my love of the immortal spinning string top thanks to a boring day at work. When you're on register on a Sunday morning at a video store, you inevitably reach that point when you've checked in all the videos in the drop box and cleaned the counters as many times as could conceivably useful, yet you've still got no one in your line and nothing to do. So I bought meself a yo-yo to pass the time while waiting for some early riser to buy a newspaper.
I used to yo a lot when I was a kid, and it's been slowly coming back to me to the point where I'm probably better at it now than I was then.
Probably helps that I REALLY like this particular yo-yo, too-- it's a shiny red Duncan Profire, kind of a faux-butterfly style, with a metal axle. I'm a big fan of metal axles over the wooden variety-- they're more durable, obviously, and I find they also tend to have a little less friction on the string, which makes for easy sleeping even with a relatively tight loop. This one kind of makes a hissing sound like a cricket when it sleeps, which I like-- just gives me one more indication if my sleeper is about to go dead.
I've worn through three strings in the past month-- I need to see if any toy stores in the area sell big packs of yo-yo strings, so far I've been getting new ones by rummaging through my closet, but I think I've finally found the last one left over from back in the day.
I bought a book of tricks to practice, too-- the Klutz Yo-Yo Book, I'm a big fan of Klutz Press.
Rock the Cradle was one of my favorites from back in the day, I picked that one right back up again.
I initially had the hardest time figuring out Around the World, but now it's just about as easy to me as the old "up-and-down," I can do a double with little trouble and pull off a triple with pretty good regularity if my wrist is feeling limber.
I can generally manage a good eight or ten feet while Walking the Dog as long as the loop is loose enough.
Right now I'm working on perfecting my Loop-the-Loop, I seem to have trouble with that one-- my hand always seems to want to turn it into an Around the World, or else I fall prey to the dreaded off-center throw which results in a wobbling, unstable yo-yo.
I'm also working on my Around the Corner-- I've managed it more than a few times, but my accuracy isn't up to the point where I can pull it off with regularity-- and Hop the Fence (which should be an easy variation on Loop-the-Loop, but for some reason isn't).
What about you? Do you yo-yo?