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The vicarious busker

In the middle of 1993, I decided to spend three months in the dance studios of the upper floors of Knoxville’s Candy Factory practicing my dance, pantomime, comedy and choreographing my juggling routines in preparation to hike Europe while living off the rewards of my busking. I had successfully busked the corner of Jackson Avenue and Central on the corner of Manhattan’s for 12 weeks every Friday and Saturday night making at least $50 a night sometimes working as little as two hours which was better than the tips I made on a full shift waiting tables at Shoney’s plus someone usually bought me a beer or two. My "success" in Knoxville along with the encouragement of a friend who had eight years experience juggling for money (2 on the streets, 6 on the cruise line/college circuits) left me confident that I would eat well, pay my bills, and stay in nice hotels and if that didn’t work out my friend had advised me on how to sleep under a bush without getting arrested or having equipment stolen.

By the end of 1993, I was making $13000 a year working 70 hours a week with 4 other smelly guys in a tiny, cramped motel room which had been converted to a software development office with desks made out of doors on filing cabinets. The shower doubled as storage and a sound room for recording audio. Another room was reserved for artists, one for customer service, and two for packaging and shipping.

My European ship sailed and I now live vicariously through the videos of buskers such as Street Show Keith.

Street Show Keith from StopDropAndRoll Inc. on Vimeo.

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R.I.P. MyBlogLog

In case you haven’t heard, Yahoo (in true Yahoo form), is shutting down MyBlogLog. The official email arrived today:

Dear MyBlogLog Customer,

You have been identified as a customer of Yahoo! MyBlogLog. We will officially discontinue Yahoo! MyBlogLog effective May 24, 2011. Your agreement with Yahoo!, to the extent that it applies to the Yahoo! MyBlogLog, will terminate on May 24, 2011.

After May 24, 2011 your credit card will no longer be charged for premium services on MyBlogLog. We will refund you the unused portion of your subscription, if any. The refund will appear as a credit via the billing method we have on file for you. To make sure that your billing information is correct and up to date, visit https://billing.yahoo.com.

Questions?
If you have questions about these changes, please visit the Yahoo! MyBlogLog help pages.

We thank you for being a customer on Yahoo! MyBlogLog.

Sincerely,

The Yahoo! My BlogLog Team

Yahoo suggests switching to Pulse.

MyBlogLog will no longer be in service from 24 May 2011. We recommend Yahoo! Pulse as a service for you to see all your social updates from your favorite networks in one place.

With Yahoo! Pulse, you can create your own identity on Yahoo! and you can easily connect and engage with the people, content, and applications that matter to you, wherever you are on Yahoo!.

Here’s hoping that if I ever have a successful Internet company that Yahoo never buys it.

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When religions die, do they go to Heaven?

Interesting.

Using census data going back a century, a team of mathematicians have created a model showing that, according to them, "religion will all but vanish eventually from nine Western-style democracies" – Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Austria, the Czech Republic, Finland, Switzerland and . . . drum roll . . . Ireland.

[Source, CNN, Organized religion ‘will be driven toward extinction’ in 9 countries, experts predict]