Mark Hayward Is My Hero

I had lunch at a Pittsburgh tradition today: Primanti’s. I met my new magician friend Doc Dixon at the Carson St location. Thankfully he warned me in advance that the sandwiches come with the fries and coleslaw in the sandwich!

Without his warning I think I might have been traumatized. We had a nice lunch, and then hung out at the magic shop for a little while. I hooked Doc up with the skinny on which paddleball he needed, and he’s pretty excited about the prospect of a new toy.

The proof is in the picture. Last Friday I got to perform at the annual banquet of the Greater Pittsburgh Magic Network (GPMN), and it was in a real, live castle. Ok, it was a modern castle, and it wasn’t alive, but still.

First there was a close-up show, then dinner followed by a stage show. Since I am new to Pittsburgh no one knew me other than Paul Gertner, who had invited me. Paul was the headliner, so he thought it would be fun to have me come up as an innocent volunteer as part of one of his bits. It was really fun. We planned it so that Paul and I each had a yo-yo, he was telling me how to use the yo-yo to complete the magic trick, and then I showed him up with my yo-yo skills. It was pretty funny. After it was clear that I was a shill, Paul introduced me and I did a routine. It’s always great to be the juggler at a magic show since no one else there does what you do, and thus are not already bored by it.

It’s weird being at a magic show with a bunch of magicians. They don’t clap at the same time as a normal audience. For one thing, they know how a lot of the stuff is done; and for some of the tricks they clap when the secret magician thing is done somewhere in the middle of the trick, not at the ta-da moment at the end when the rest of us clap.

There was a mentalism trick done at one point, where the guy on stage asks for an audience member to pick a “magic” number. Then he takes a marker and fills in some seemingly random numbers into a big 4×4 grid that he is holding. The thing is that the numbers all add up to the “magic” number when you add them together in rows, columns, corners, diagonals, etc. It’s a good trick. What made it totally surreal for me was that as soon as the “magic” number was picked, the guy sitting next to me took out a pencil and his program and started racing the guy on stage to get the numbers of the grid written down. I still don’t know how it’s done (and that’s how I like it), but by itself, the pencil race next to me was really amazing.

My wife and I have moved a lot in the last few years for her job. In each new place we get a new phone number for the land line in our house that I use as a business line. Back in the early 90s, when I used to move every year in college, my roommates and I would get a new phone number at our new place, and almost no one would call unless we gave them the number. Of course there were wrong numbers and telemarketers, but they were pretty few and far between. Now every time Lenore and I get a new number the phone starts ringing as soon as we plug it in… and it’s usually collection agencies.

Back in the era before fax machines and cell phones there was less demand for phone numbers. Most people had one phone number that was shared with their whole family, and another one (or several) at work shared with all their colleagues. Now, not only do individuals often have multiple phone numbers, but they are getting them at an earlier age. Teenagers do love their cell phones.

Also, I have heard that when you disconnect a number, it used to sit idle for a while so that the new owner didn’t get the old number’s calls. But now due to intense demand for numbers, the idle time has been greatly reduced, and they are cycled back into service much sooner.

In our era of decreased personal responsibility and increased personal debt, combined with a rough economy, there are inevitably more people who are living so far above their means that they can’t pay their bills. Here come the collection agencies. Collection must be a huge industry now, so they are using technology to streamline their operations. They now use a recording to call my new house rather than a real person.

The result is an endless barrage of often early-morning calls that don’t even have a person on the other end when I answer. Sometimes it’s a recording asking for someone I’ve never heard of, asking me to “Press 1 if you are… Sylvaniar ******; press 2 if you’re not.” The problem here, is that there is no option for “You have the wrong number” and there is no one there to talk to so I can explain the situation. So if I press 2, they will just call back another time. I hang up.

The one that annoyed me the most so far was a recorded voice that said, “Please hold for an important phone call!”, then made me wait on the line until someone picked up and said,

“May I help you?”
“You called me!”
“May I speak to Sylvaniar?”
“You have the wrong number.”
“Do you know Sylvaniar?”
“I have never even heard of anyone with that name before you started calling me.”
“Ok, thank you.”

Today I was woken up by an early morning call that I didn’t answer because I was sure it was a collection agency. When I checked my voice mail there was a message from “Bob Isaac” with a toll-free number. I was fairly certain that “Bob” didn’t exist, but I called the number in the hopes that I could get them to stop calling me. The first thing that happened was a recording asked me to enter my Social Security number. That was scary. I didn’t do it. I bet a lot of people do though, and I wouldn’t be surprised if identity thieves use the same tactic. Of course it turned out that there was no Bob Isaac, and of course I didn’t know who Evan was, so maybe they will stop calling.

So far I have gotten calls for Sylvaniar, Evan, Linda, and Grace. I wouldn’t have thought that many people could have had this phone number recently enough, and gone into collection, for me to get this many calls… but they did… and that’s the world we now live in.

…and man are they yummy. They were much easier to make than I expected too. If you want to use the same recipe that I did, check it out here.

I have only lived in Pittsburgh since August, and I absolutely love it here. Like anywhere though, there are some problems, and for the most part they are very minor. When we moved here people were complaining about the potholes, but it really didn’t seem bad to me at all. Well, that’s because it was the middle of summer. Now, at the end of winter the potholes are ridiculous. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that some of them are 12 inches deep. It’s unbelievable. It has gotten so bad that it actually changes traffic patterns and the way people drive.

I have had locals tell me that the city can’t fix them in the winter because of the cold. That’s baloney. I have seen pothole crews out in the winter in Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota, and two of the three have WAY worse winters that Pittsburgh. Another pal told me that the potholes don’t get fixed because the city is so broke. That I can believe, but I hope they get it together soon, or I’m going to start thinking there is a conspiracy between the city and the auto mechanics. At one shop I even saw a “Pothole Special” that included wheel alignment, brake check, tire rotation/inspection, and a shoulder to cry on. (Ok, I made up the part about the shoulder.)

Although there is still a long way to go until we are back to smooth sailing, yesterday I noticed that the two craters on my block had been filled in. Yay! Spring is here!

I just started another ebay blitz.  I like to do my ebay selling in spurts.  That way I can really just focus on that, and it’s much easier to do everything assembly-line fashion.  As usual I have some yo-yos, some tops, and some random stuff that I don’t want anymore for sale.  There are a couple of things on there that I think the yo-yo collectors willbe really excited about, but we’ll just have to see.

You can see my auction items here.

It’s easy to remember to complain when something is terrible, but it’s much harder to remember to praise when something is great.

I absolutely love my web host. Dreamhost.com makes it so easy. I am pretty good with computers and figuring things out, but even with the help of my good friend Harper I can’t always understand everything I need to know to run my websites. Dreamhost spells it all out, and has a great sense of humor about what they do. Also, they do a really good job of playing to all levels of knowledge. It’s clear that they really know what they are talking about, AND they have that rare and valuable understanding that not everyone else knows what they are talking about. I truly have no complaints so far with Dreamhost.

Partly I’m writing about Dreamhost because they are great, and if you are thinking about changing hosts, or starting a web presence, I can’t recommend them highly enough. The other reason I’m writing is that if you click this banner, which names me as the referrer, I get paid. Everybody wins.

I would recommend Dreamhost to anyone who asked, even without the referral program, it’s just that this program is what got me going to actually write about it. So if you need hosting, click the banner and sign up. You won’t regret it.

In a mad blitz, my friend Matiss and I played 50 rounds of WeeWar tonight. It was amazing. One of the great things about WeeWar is that it is turn-based. That way you can play with a bunch of people, and they can just take their turn when they are able to, rather than everyone having to be online at the same time. So that means that normally people only play a few rounds a day… not fifty. Needless to say, I’m a little cooked right now, but this definitely scratched the WeeWar itch that was plaguing me.

We’re playing a particularly ridiculous game at the moment where we have limited the units to Guys for me and Tanks for Matiss. I cleverly called it “Guys vs. Tanks”.  You can see the game here.

PS: If you click the banner above and sign up, I get extra credit, and may someday become cool.

I can’t believe it. 66 degrees! From now on I’m changing the phrase to, “I think I’ve died and gone to Pittsburgh.”

I mean seriously… this is incredible. This is supposed to be the time of year when we suffer in the cold, all bundled up in layers, and I was out walking with my dog in the park in short sleeves. I didn’t think that Pittsburgh could get any better than it already was. I like winter, and I’ve always said that I would love to live in a place that has a real winter, but maybe just one that’s not quite so long as a Wisconsin winter. Now it seems that I have accidentally found such a place. Today we broke the record of 64 degrees that was set back in 1998. Amazing.

Yup. You read it correctly. Tonight I was on the NBC Nightly News.

Screenshot from MSNBC.com

They were doing a story on the writer’s strike and how it affects shows that are run every day like The Tonight Show, and Late Night with David Letterman, and one of the clips they used when talking about Letterman was of me doing my Stupid Human Trick. Now both my Dad and I have been on the NBC News without having to commit a crime, or fall into a well.

For a short time you can see the video here on the NBC website.

For a longer time you can see the story on YouTube here.

If you recorded the show by chance, I REALLY want a high-quality copy of this broadcast, and I’d be very grateful if you could help me out.