Magic and snow

    I’m watching “Nova Science Now”. I’m a total geek for science and natural history shows on television; it’s a good thing I only have basic-basic cable or I’d be watching these shows 24/7.
    Penn and Teller were performing their “appearing balls” trick - the one where foil balls keep appearing underneath cups. I had only a little difficulty in seeing Teller loading the balls into the cups and I wasn’t sure if it was the angle of the camera that allowed me to see most of the action but it seemed to me that they were implying that people didn’t see it at all. I’m “people” and I saw it! They then did it slower and Teller’s action was clearer to me but not to their human guinea pig, who was carefully watching. Then, they repeated it, blocking out Teller’s face. Suddenly, it was also clear to the human guinea pig. They said that the presence of a face was enough of a distraction for people to not be able to see most “magic” tricks. I’ve almost always been able to see what magicians are doing but attributed this to my having tried to do slight of hand while in college. Now, I’m not so sure that’s the reason.
    I often don’t look at people’s faces. Particularly when I’m watching a magician, I watch their hands. I may glance at one’s face, but only for a millisecond. I want to see the action. The face doesn’t really distract me; I blur it out. Magicians like to pull your eyes up to theirs so they can do something while you aren’t looking. I guess most people can’t ignore someone staring at their face. I’m conscious of it but I chose to ignore it (it’s not hard).
    The next article on the episode showed a man coming up to a woman and asking her for directions. While she was thinking, two guys carried a board past her, masking the face that the fellow who asked for the directions left and another guy took his place. I would never notice this, unless his voice was different, but this is part and parcel of my issue with faces. One looks pretty much like another and a pair of strangers don’t have to work hard to fool me.
    Another article in the same episode was on TMS. John’s friend, Alvaro Pascual-Leone, was shown. Alvaro and others talked about using TMS to modify depression and even moral judgements. Hmmm. This looks potentially pretty ugly to me.
    Ahhh, I just went to the show’s website and discovered an older show where somebody is using this idea of “joint attention” - that people will generally look at what the magician looks at and not at what the magician is doing - and using slight of hand to help autistic kids learn how to follow social cues. Apparently, a lot of autistic people aren’t fooled by magicians. Is this more evidence that I’m probably also on the spectrum? How many times do I have to be hit in the head before I accept this?

    Well, we had yet more snow, but not quite to two feet that had been forecast for the last three days. Actually, we had two storms, 24 hours apart. We “only” got another 15 inches. There is so much snow, if I could stand on the grass of my front lawn, I’d be nearly chin-deep. When I was on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire,” the first things I bought were a snow blower and an Ipod. Jack got the Ipod but I’ve been thanking the producers in my mind every day for the snow blower! I’m a bit distraught right now; one of the cables has never been attached properly (the goons at Home Depot did a terrible job assembling it five years ago, so much so that the first thing it did after I bought it was lose a wheel!). This cable controls the shute lock. The cable wasn’t properly adjusted; the shute swung around wildly. I sent the machine back to be adjusted and it worked pretty well afterwards but the cable was always loose.
    During the last storm, the shute started swinging again. I looked up how to adjust it and got out my wrench but it didn’t work. I figured out tonight that the cable had, most recently, been resting on the muffler and the cover melted. I’m going to have to replace it tomorrow. I’ll figure out where it should be attached and this won’t happen again but in the meanwhile, the shute is now jammed and the machine only blows snow to the right. This is a hassle so I didn’t finish clearing the driveway from today’s storm.
    I can get my car out, though. I’ll get a new cable and I’ll finish the driveway tomorrow or Friday. The weather forecast said that both days will be ideal. And I’m worried about my roof. I used the rest of the “Millionaire” cash to put a shed dormer on the back of my house and the roof is pretty flat, now. A number of local buildings collapsed yesterday from the weight of all of the snow. A barn full of horses, a lumberyard, and an abandoned house, are some examples. I think my house is sturdier that any of them but I’m getting worried. I hired a guy to chip off the ice dams on my front eaves but the snow has shifted, creating new dams. I’ll have to get to these, too. I want my summer back!