Magic and Illusion About.com Chat: This has been open a while, I don’t know why I haven’t visited sooner, meet some top name stars and chat magic, heaven!
An online place for magicians to Brainstorm: If you join up, which is Free you get access to chat, and a message board with some very good ideas.
Jamy Ian Swiss / For fans & magicians / What’s up?: Check out Jamy Ian Swiss’s site for some nice thought provoking essays… Although I don’t always agree with his reviews for Genii Magazine what he has to say makes for some interesting reading.
I signed a petition today at our Church Service for people in Nigeria as the government are trying to get everyone to adopt Sharia Law. Basically this is the law that is fundemental to Islam. The Religion is the state, so any politics or law making that goes on is all tied in with their religion, which as Christian I can see that this is soooo wrong. Your faith, or even lack of it, should be your personal decision, the state should be a completly seperate body with no religious views. The women are the hardest hit, you can read about some of the ridiculous things that they have to abide by in the Fatawas Regarding Women. Basically Women are not allowed to go out unless they are fully covered from head to toe, and accompanied by a male. They cannot look at anybody that is not a member of their own family. I am religious, and I REALLY don’t want to denigrate other peoples religions or beliefs, but hello.. 21st Century anybody? If thats what the Islamic Religion is about you can stick it! Trying to force your religion onto someone is well out of order if you ask me.
My ISP Karoo have decided to change their pricing plans. They have just changed over from being run by Kingston-Internet to being run by Kingston Communications. For those of you interested, I live in a City called Kingston-Upon-Hull (the only City in the UK to have the Kingston title apart from Kingston-Upon-Thames!) and we are lucky enough to have our own phone company Kingston Communications. With me so far! So I was with a service called Karoo Xtra which I paid 15 pounds a month for, and I could use our own 01482 local call number to dial the internet which costs 5p for unlimited time. Now they have put that service up to 25 pounds a month!! Also they have introduced Karoo Anytime which is 29.99 a month which gives the elusive un-metered access 24/7… or Karoo Freetime which for 9.99 a month gives you unmetered on an evening and weekends… ahhhhrghh the choices! I think in the end I’ll go for Karoo Anytime for un-metered access, as I use it enough… and it means a distinct possibility of a web-cam for this site!! (don’t all cheer at once!) But the thing is I can go for something like RedHotAnt which offers unmetered access for 20 pounds a year, but on sites like ISP Review it doesn’t get a good rating, with constant engaged tones and 100+ tries to get through! So I think I’ll stick with the local option.
Oops serious lack of posting, I don’t know how people manage to blog on a daily basis, excuses… well we’ve been busy at work re-wiring our entire network to convert to CAT5 and as a consequence I haven’t had an Internet connection in my office (not that I blog from work, honest guv!) so when you see a computer 9-5 you really just want to rest when you come home, well thats my excuse anyway! Today I have just bought a new External 56k Modem and a spanking new Yamaha CD Writer 
So now I am ready to convert to Linux as it didn’t take kindly to my internal Winmodem 
So I will be posting some more about my linux escapades as a total Linux Newbie. Lastly I promise more posts in future, and some magic related ones as well I guess! Also look out for some additions to the site.
Mark’s Apology Note Generator: Need to make an apology to someone, its not quite as romantic as flowers and chocolates
Notes and video on the Bottom Deal: Learn how to do this invaluable sleight.
The Junkies: this is an online DIY Sitcom that was thought too controversial to be shown on TV, its about 3 heroin junkies. It features one of my favourite actresses Sally Phillips!
Icepick.com - A wired house: I forgot about this site, its cool, some guy has wired his house up, a bit like the current big brother craze. You can tell stuff like what was the last thing he trashed, or what was the last thing he had out of the fridge, or when the last time the doorbell rang! One question… WHY!?
Bicycle Playing Cards - good site giving you a look at some of the designs of this popular brand of cards. Now if only they would print them straight!
I was just going to catch up with my newsgroups using RemarQ and find that the site has vanished, and they have been taken over by Critical Path. They now want to charge $100 for a years newsgroup feed! I prefer to read ng’s online anyway, less harddrive clutter and no download times. Thank the web for Deja thats all I can say.
Send Money Order - Write a Money Order or Check Instantly. Pay for Auctions. Could come in handy to pay for those overseas Ebay orders, or to order Magic from people who don’t take CC’s…
hatsandrabbits.com hope to produce a database of every magician on the planet called ’every living magician’… sign up and add your details at the site.
Talking of Peter Duffie, you may want to check out his other site: Duffie’s Alternative Magic where you can find some excellent free card tricks.
A new Magic Ebook from Peter Duffie has just been released it has 33 contributors, with 50 effects its name is VIRTUAL MIRACLES and I have ordered a copy so I will review it when it arrives in my mailbox.
If you want to find out what is going on in NewZeland subscribe to: MagicNZ e-zine. They have some very indepth FISM reports coming up.
There has been a slight lack of posts whilst I sort out my site design, I think I have settled on this layout for now, hope its ok! I will be off on holiday for the next week to sunny Shropshire so no posts for a week unless I can find a cyber-cafe!
See you when I get back! If anyone is reading this!
Just got the first issue of Trick & Treat in my mailbox it looks very promising, can’t wait for future issues, I suggest that you sign up now!
Its out! Check Simon Lovell’s new book Son of Simon Says. His first book ‘Simon Says’ is still the most used, looked at and all-round favourite book in my Library, I can’t wait to sink my teeth into this one, and I have heard he has a third book in this Trilogy due out next year called ‘Grandson of Simon Says’!