Crafty work: Homemade close-up pad feels better than it looks

This is my close-up pad. There are many like it but this one is mi– WAIT, there are none like it, because I made this one.

It measures 24-by-12 inches, so I have good length for spreads but not a lot of wasted depth. It is large enough to give me ample room for a great table spread, or for some of the table effects I do.

I have a love-meh relationship with that surface material. The chessboard look is kinda cool. The dark squares are a “short-haired” velvet, the lighter ones are the un-velvet-covered fabric which looks like a very thin pleather. Because the squares are smaller, there’s a slight distortion created that helps hide things, too. Keeps eyeballs just a bit buzzed, so if I’m off placing a double as a single, I get a little bit of forgiveness. PLus, I was just told it looks kind of like a carbon-fiber surface, and that sounds bad-a**.

For all the meh about its looks, the surface feels awesome. Gives me a perfect slide and grip. LOVE IT.

The innards are a double layer of fleece (thanks for that idea, Irving Quant) and a 24-by-12 piece of balsa wood. Underneath is a hot mess of staples and a foam rubber surface for grip.

Equality = triumph

This is my take on the red equality logo started by Human Rights Campaign. I used an LTD deck from Ellusionist and red posterboard. Shot with my great-for-a-consumer-model-according-to-T.Rob Nikon D5100.

Magicians should recognize exactly how this is a triumph.

Road to nowhere: Lap confirms ‘Realm of the Mad God’ theory about zones of difficulty

For as long as I’ve played “Realm of the Mad God,” I’ve had a theory about the game’s roads: I’ve thought they marked sections of increasing difficulty. And because when a player first enters a realm they start on the edges of the island, next to water, I’ve suspected that the roads take laps around each realm.

I decided to walk it out and test that theory (I probably could have easily confirmed it by looking up a map or talking to someone, but what fun is that?) by hiking a lap. I started out as a wizard and packed a Slayer Staff, Flame Burst Spell, Robe of the Conjurer and Ring of Superior Vitality. All these were collected from previous lives (this game is a very Hindu game, after all — what we do in this life prepares us for the next), obviously, because the pickins were never very good, outside of health and magic potions.

Man of Steal: Trailer for rising superhero uses ode to fallen wizard

“You… shall not… use my death music for yet another reboot of yet another superhero movie!”

We’ll talk more about “The Dark Knight Rises,” because that was an amazing movie. For one thing, it put cops in a really good light, but elaborating on that would be dancing with spoilers. Still, I wanted to call the cops during the trailers before that movie, for music theft.

It happened during the preview for “Man of Steel,” the Superman reboot coming from “Watchmen” director Zack Snyder. As you watch this trailer, listen to the music:

Sound familiar? Remind you of sad hobbits? It should:

“Man of Steel” used “The Bridge of Khazad-dûm,” an orchestral piece composed by Howard Shore for “Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring.” It plays as the fellowship escape a horde of orcs, dance across a crumbling bridge, dodge arrows and escape a balrog. Almost everyone: Gandalf clinging for his life off the side of a bridge thanks to an extremely lucky whipstroke, tells the rest of those fools to fly, then falls. Because the hobbits in the fellowship hadn’t seen “The Two Towers” yet, they didn’t know that Gandalf put a hurt on that huge hellbeast, so they were kind of depressed.

As if you couldn’t tell how sad everyone was, Shore composed arguably one of the most heartbreaking sequences of music ever composed. (Jump to about 4:42 for the good stuff.) The phrase is about 1:20 long and puts a sadness in you that two hours of Greg Edmonson couldn’t match. Director Peter Jackson brilliantly hit the mute button and kept Shore’s music running, smartly silencing the sound of sniveling, sniffling hobbits.

In a nutshell: It’s not like the “Man of Steel” trailer lifted a piece of classical music. It used a piece of music specifically made for one of literature’s most recognized scenes. Sure, the trailer makers probably had the rights. But it ain’t right.

Singer’s pitch down, but energy up on Passion Pit’s new album

While I’m not a fan of most pop music, I’m a sucker for indie pop. Foster the People, OK Go, Sleigh Bells, Joe Hedges, MGMT — I could listen to all those bands all day and not miss prog-rock much.

File Passion Pit in with that group. The band’s second full-length album, “Gossamer,” is slated for release on Tuesday. Thanks to NPR streaming it on its site, I’ve preordered the album on iTunes to get a bonus track.

While Michael Angelakos continues to use his almost signature falsetto, the notes aren’t as high as they usually are. In fact, I don’t think he hits any notes higher than the ones in “Make Light,” from “Manners.” The lower notes make the songs on Gossamer feel evolved and more cohesive.

Much like its first album, “Gossamer” is driven by keyboards and samples, and features a charged, energetic pace that masks some of the pensive, morose lyrics. There’s some clever passages, too, in a style reminiscent of “Sleepyhead” — again from the first album. But there are many more influences, including some Imogen Heap-style engineered harmonies, some Modest Mouse marching mirth and even some throwbacks to R&B slow jams.

“Take a Walk,” the album’s opener, is an anthemic testament to aging, if such a subject can be anthemic. But I’ve played that song more times than I can count. I also like the hectic sampling in “I’ll Be Alright,” the power choruses in “Constant Conversations” and the layers in “Mirrored Sea.” There’s a lot of variety and gear-changing in “Gossamer,” giving the album a lot of replay value. And each song features a myriad of musical lines that will keep sharp-eared listeners discovering new things for months.

Fans have been waiting for this album for three years; it’s worth the wait.

Purveyors of carcinogens release addicting playing cards

Here’s a quiz for you: What do these three sets of playing cards have in common?

As much as I detest cigarettes, and the companies that make them, those companies made some killer decks of cards. Each of these sets is a promotional item from well known cigarette brands. Most promotional decks feature simply the brand and logo of a certain smoke; the handling and quality is nothing special. But these three decks stand out for their unique design and superb handling.

Blueberry sauce makes steaks taste incredible

Check out that beauty. That flat iron steak is topped with a blueberry sauce I found at Forays into Foodiedom; click that link and give ‘em some love. Oh man, was that stuff good. The tartness of the blueberries mixed perfectly with the steaks. Instead of becoming a meat candy like the cherry rub, the strong flavor of the meat was enhanced by the blueberry’s subtle sweetness. That sauce brings out the best in the fruit’s sweetness without getting candy-like — all the ingredients back off for the blueberry and bring it out.

Blueberries are one of my lifelong favorite foods. When I was a kid, I always wanted a blueberry pie instead of a birthday cake. My grandmother, Bammy, always made a red, white and blue pie for holidays. You can imagine how vindicated I felt when, as an adult, I found out that blueberries are the Superman of foods.

Back to the steaks, I made some tweaks to the recipe:

• I used red cooking wine instead of just red wine. The taste of wine is wasted on me, so I figured I was OK with the rough stuff. I also didn’t wanna open the only bottle of red wine we have in the house.
• I used rosemary leaves instead of the finer stuff. Next time, I’ll try crushing it up.
• Instead of cooking sirloins in the same frying pan, I grilled flat irons (seasoned with only salt and peppercorns) and dolloped sauce on top. There was plenty to spread around.

The blueberry abundance in this area is apparent in the produce section. The berries are huge and fresh, and actually pretty cheap (I found an 18-ounce carton at Food 4 Less for less than $3. Yes, the same Food 4 Less I dogged for having expensive flat irons. Win some, lose some.)

In other words, there’s plenty available for standard blueberry stuff, such as muffins and pies. There are also plenty for trying new things such as slathering steaks with ‘em. Nom.

My next mission: Combining blueberries and bacon. It has to have been done before; if not, I’ll be a pioneer. I’ll do that for y’all. I consider it a public service.

Best of both worlds: Liquid Blue deck a perfect mix of design, quality

One of the most vivid, colorful decks of playing cards ever printed started as simple black-line drawings.

“We knew that if the art held up in just black, then it was great design,” said Paul Roidoulis, CEO and art director of Liquid Blue. “If it needed a color, then that color was probably a crutch. We wanted to make sure that when the color was applied, it would give the illustration even more.”

The company in 1992 produced the Liquid Blue deck, one of the most enigmatic, beautiful decks of cards I’ve ever found. The deck features superb card stock, clever design and bold colors — a combination not often found in playing cards before 2006.

Ghost deck led to discovering sleight of hand

My playing card collection has plenty of significant, cherished decks because of personal reasons — from the office seat in the new Geek Central, I can easily spy the deck that got me interested in collecting, the deck that got me through a bad year, the deck I used in my first paid magic gig, etc. There’s no better way to start a series of posts about my decks than with the Ghost, for a number of reasons.

The Ghost deck, designed by Ellusionist, is unique for its lack of color. The pips, court cards, aces and everything is black, except for the indices of the red cards. The cards were printed on UV-500 cardstock, which handled so beautifully and really set Ellusionist head and shoulders above the competition, before the U.S. Playing Card Company went all bonkers with its cardstock options. Those were the days.

Pending Instragram sale a reminder about what users are

An interesting maxim has circulated across the Internet over the last couple of years:

“If you’re not the customer, you’re the product.”

However, radio and TV broadcasters have known that maxim for years — only in this form:

“TANSTAAFL: There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.”

Even though “ain’t” isn’t a negative contraction, it’s clearly a negative, which means that I have spent more years obsessing about the bad grammar in that sentence. My economics teachers wish I would have concentrated more on the overriding philosophy behind it. Namely, that everything has a price and nothing is free.

Which puts Facebook’s impending purchase of Instagram in an impressive, my-econ-teacher-was-actually-right-about-something light.

Founder Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement Monday that the social networking site would buy Instagram for $1 billion. Not for any profit possibilities, according to Bruce Upbin of Forbes, but for competitive positioning. He wrote that while the move doesn’t appear to have immediate benefits for Facebook, but it brings serious potential harm to Yahoo and its photo-sharing site, Flickr.

“Zuckerberg is playing chess, making a defining move in how it stands in the photo space,” he wrote. “It’s like what Google did with YouTube.“

Instagram is a free program and sharing site — iOS and Droid users can download the app and do everything with it at no extra cost. It’s not available on BlackBerry, but that’s OK by me. I paid top dollar for a camera and phone that take good, high-resolution pictures, and I don’t want Instagram messing that up.

Go back to that chess game: Facebook pays a trenta to acquire a service that brings in no revenue. The only reason to do that is to enhance Facebook’s user experience and offer users the integration of a popular service. Will the acquisition bring in new users? Maybe some, but not many, because Instagram users are already all over Facebook. (how else do you think I see all these crappy, hipster, Polaroid wanna-be shots?)

In other words, it’s an experience enhancement to get people using Facebook more. More shares and links means more ad views and possible clicks.

If you’re not paying, you’re the product. Remember that when configuiring privacy services on all those free apps.