BSP yo-yo bags for Anti-Yo

Yesterday I made my mock up holster for the BSP, a new yo-yo by Anti-yo. The denim is raw selvage denim. Now I have to make 74 more.

Plug-in to y'r muse

The folks at Broken Yo-yos sent me one of their newest products, the Plug-in III.



The Plug-in III is smooth as hell on the string, and probably the shiniest yo-yo I've ever seen. But what I really like about it is how inspired I feel every time I pick it up. I've been trying out a bunch of new whip moves with mine, but it also motivated me to create a little tribute to MC Escher's self portrait in a metallic sphere.



I call it Hand With Reflecting Halves.

POPCAST E07 w/ Simon Welch

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This episode of the PopCast video blog features Simon Welch, the UK National Champion.

Simon talks about the B.S.P. from Anti-Yo and shows his new trick "Wedding Nails".

Doc teaches "La Parqour". Fun is had by all.

Also available on YouTube.

POPCAST E06 "Yo-Yo Core"

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In this episode of PopCast, I talk to my old friend Kyle Machulis about his newest project at Nonpolynomial Labs. Inspired by Johnny Lee's fantastic Wii-hacks, Kyle has created a yo-yo controlled musical interface using Max/MSP and a modified Torch circuit board. In the video, Kyle talks about the project and let's me make some yo-yo core.

You can check out Kyle's "WiiYo" post on www.nonpolynomial.com. Skin The Gerbil never sounded so good.

POPCAST E05, Stalls pt. II

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In Episode 3 "Stalls pt. I" I met up with two handed yo-yo guru Joseph Harris and challenged him to create a few two handed tricks based on the old "Lunar Landing" trick.

Due to several conflicts, Joseph and I were unable to record the results right away, but I hope you find the results worth the wait.

Also on this episode is Joseph's tips for picking up chicks and Doc shows just about every one handed version of stall you (by "you" I mean "me") can imagine.

POPCAST E04

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Inbetween yo-yo gigs and shipping orders from www.DocPopCrafts.com I managed make this week's PopCast.

This episode's tricks include The Brent and Branding

PopCast E03.5

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Stalls Part 1 and a half.

Staring Drew Tetz.

Doc Pop is at the Winnies in L.A. this week and will return next week.

POPCAST E03, Stalls pt. I

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On this fantastic PopCast, I disscuss the art of stalling. Stalls are one of yo-yoing's newer moves and involves stalling the yo-yo as it returns back to your hand.

In this episode I give the talented Josheph Harris a two handed stall challenge and one week to see what he can come up with it.

My special co-host this week is the infamous Boxthor. Unfortunately, this episode had to be slightly edited due to the length of Joseph's segment.

DocPopCrafts.com SALE

Happy holidays, kids.



It's Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year, and if you are anything like me you'll be avoiding the stores for the rest of the year and doing your shopping online instead.
If you are looking for unique handmade gifts this year, check out my online shop DocPopCrafts.com

I make iPhone cases, wallets & wallet chains, and coffee cozies out of re-cycled materials. I'm especially fond of using durable upholstery and scraps from awesome selvage jeans like Samurai, Imperial, Nudie, Evisu, Sugarcane, Iron Heart, Skull, and some of Levi's better stuff.

Now for the SALE!

This weekend I'm adding some special new items to my shop, including wallets and wallet chains made from vintage neckties and selvage denim. I'm also including free shipping (within the US) from now until Monday evening (11/26 @11pm pacific time).

POPCAST E02

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In this episode, Doc waxes on Pringle's Prints, the writer's strike, Houdini Drops, and the Gondola.

Filmed 11/13/07

POPCAST, episode 1.

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Welcome to the first episode of Doctor Popular's yo-yo video blog.

This episode runs a bit long, but that's because Doc is used to doing 45 minute audiocasts, so six minutes really isn't that bad.

Topics include John Higby's painted yo-yos, back of the hand stalls, YoYoNation's vlog, and a new freehand flourish called "loom".

Master of Self Promotions

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I've finally gotten around to uploading the entire yo-yo segment from Master Of Champions. It was a huge file and took some work, but I've uploaded it to blip.tv and a few other online video places.

I've also taken the liberty of uploading the entire Master Of Champions show and just the edited Doc Pop interview. You can download them here.

Quicktime
Full Master of Champions 784 megs (the best quality I have)
Yo-yo Segment 24 megs
Doc Pop Interview 13 megs

iPhone ready
Full Master of Champions 308 megs
Yo-yo Segment 86 megs

Divx
Full Master of Champions 353 megs
Yo-yo Segment 99 megs

If anyone feels like creating a torrent of the Full quicktime file, let me know and I'll host the link here.

Aloha

Today I'm featured on Veronica Belmont's cool Mahalo Daily video-cast, so I wanted to say hi to any new readers that may be surfing this site.

I was going to link to a couple videos or whatever, but it looks like Mahalo.com already has a good list of my yo-yo related article on their "Doc Popular" entry. For those who would like links to my craft site, personal blog, or even Twitter info, you can find all that stuff on www.DocPop.org.

I've found it interesting that even though I refer to myself as Doctor Popular or Doc Pop, I often get referred to as Doctor Pop or Doc Popular in the media. It first started happening on that ABC show I was on last year and it really drove me nuts. Hearing Oksana Baiul repeatedly butcher your name would give you nightmares.

Oh, and speaking of Master Of Champions, I'm currently encoding the entire episode we were on and some of the individual segments for the web. Check back in the next few days to see those.

Back from Nats

This year's National Yo-Yo Contest was one of my favorites. Congratulations to Jake Bullock and JonRob on being the first joint recipients of the Trick Innovator of the year award. On another note, I thought this year was easily the best year for Freehand at Nats. Historically, freehand was one of the most anticipated divisions and often turned out to be one of the most disappointing.

I mentioned previously that I would be live blogging the event from my iPhone and updating it to my flickr as well as twittering the event. The twitter thing was pretty iffy, but you can see all my Nationals flickr set here.

I also recommend JD_WMWMW's photo set, where the above photo was culled from, and Sarah and Michelle's sets too.

For those about to flock...

to Nationals, sign up for a Twitter account, and let's keep each other notified on the happenings in Chico via text messaging on your cell phone, IM, or PDA.

Twitter is a web based web site that makes it easy to communicate with your friends. The basic idea is you have 140 characters to be able to tell everybody what your doing or thinking at any time. Ordinarily it's not the strongest branch of the new web2.o, but it is perfect for events like this, especially since it works so well with cell phones and most of us get free weekends (right?).

The first step is to go to Twitter.com and register your account, then go to http://twitter.com/devices to add your device (cell phone, IM, PDA, whatever). Once your device is registered text "track NYYC" to 40404 and you will be automatically notified whenever someone posts a Twitter containing NYYC (which stands for National yo-yo Contest... "NYYC" does not have to appear in all caps btw). This process is also described on http://twitter.com/blog/2007/09/tracking-twitter.html

Again; login to twitter, set up your mobile device, then send "track nyyc" to Twitter's text number (40404). Afterwards, feel free to find friends to follow or send a test NYYC message.

This is a big event, at times we are all at the park, other times we are scattered around, but if we use Twitter to communicate what's going on, we can make sure we don't miss a thing.

For example, "NYYC triple A throwdown going down now in the parking lot at H.I." or "OMG, @DocPop is the new NYYC champion in every single division!!!1!".

To send a message or reply to a specific Twitterer, just type the "@" in front of their name. Mine would be @DocPop or you can also check out my Twitter page http://twitter.com/DocPop

If you are Twittering any National Yo-Yo stuff, be sure to type NYYC in the message somewhere, otherwise it won't go out to everyone's Twitter Tracker.

BTW, in combination with my flickr updating, this might be a good way to keep track of what's happening in Chico this weekend.

Big Bad Popular Doctor

I'm on the verge of the next busy season for a yo-yo pro, but I've already been getting some bigger gigs lately. Today I opened for Big Bad Voodoo Daddy at a huge corporate gig in Santa Clara. I snapped a quick pic of BBVD right before I took off.

My goal is to make this the best holiday season I've ever had. It's already been the most productive, most creatively successful year I've ever had, so I have high hopes for the next 3 months.

The Rosgana Challenge

My buddy Rosgana, from Indonesia, recently posted this cool picture challenge on yoyoing.com/news.

How many differences can you spot between the two pictures?

I found 8. Oh wait, 9.

So cute!

Here is a picture from an Indonesian yo-yo player named Rosgana of his daughter Hasya playing with a Doctor Popular Bolt yo-yo. Isn't it cute?

And the daughter is cute too.

Seriously, Rosgana is an awesome dude and an incredible artist. I sent him some Bolts a few months ago and they've started turning up in all of the Indonesian yo-yo players hands. Check out pics from a yo-yo contest in Jakarta (and more here).

Cal States this weekend

Are you ready for this year's California State Yo-Yo Contest? It's this Saturday at the Exploratorium in San Francisco from 10am till 5pm.

The Chronicle article is up, you can read it online here. Be sure to check out the cool video too. I seem to have barely made it into the article, which is a shame 'cause I said some neat stuff, but that's how this stuff always goes. I hear the photo is huge in the paper though. BTW, I'm using a B.I.S.T., that's a new italian yo-yo.



Today, Bill is gonna be all over the local tv stations, hucking his YoYoJams at the cameramen.

The event has also garnered a few bits of press in the Alternative Weeklies, but they are the typical condescending drivel you'd expect to find in these types of papers.

I can't wait to see everyone there!

Putting and End to that

After a recent posting on Yoyonation's forum regarding shmooving and beefcaking, I received an interesting email from Lorenzo Bassani from BrokenYoYos team in Milan. Lorenzo is planning on releasing a yo-yo with grooved insides and wanted to talk with me about it.

As it turns out, Lorenzo posted the idea of grooves to reduce the yo-yos inner surface back in July of 2005 on The Yo's forum, complete with description and diagrams. Read the full thread here.

Thats 3 months earlier than Phil and I made our first shmooved yo-yo out of a Bolt.

To clarify that, Yes, Absolutely. was the first company to produce a shmooved yo-yo, but I believe it's obvious that Mr. Bassani was beat us to the idea and deserves credit for his innovative design.