Jason Geeks Out, Part 2

The second in the series, where our hero finds himself on the electrified end of the geek stick...zapped squarely between the eyes.

I love and have always been fascinated by magicians.  The phony kind; illusionists like Doug Henning, not the really phony kind like Merlin or Gandalf.  I think it all started for me at my fourth birthday party, where Barry the Magic Clown performed.  Barry was a high school friend of my Uncle Gary who ended up opening a magic shop in Wheaton as well as performing.  I was smitten (by the magic, not Barry...or clowns.)

Once I got old enough and sufficiently coordinated to pull of a few tricks, my parents started taking me to Barry's shop.  It was so @#$* cool!  I wasn't old enough to know the word @#$*, but I'm sure I was thinking the eight year old equivalent.  The shop was this tiny little one floor space, cramped in by over-sized display cases full of tricks, props, costumes and other paraphernalia.  It was one of my favorite places on earth (out of the 15 places I'd been on earth at that point.)

At some point in elementary school, I think around first or second grade I performed a few tricks for the annual talent show.  I remember there was this fifth or sixth grade girl, Lori Crute, that I had a huge crush on.  Somehow the planets aligned correctly and Lori ended up serving as my assistant, dressed in this fetching outfit which involved tights.  I remember it pretty vividly, because, at ten or eleven, Lori was a woman to me.  I was this shrimpy little seven year old.  That night was probably far more magical for me than it was for the audience.

That's when I learned how easy it is to score chicks with magic.

Not really.  I never learned that lesson, partially because I was always a shrimpy kid, and partially because you generally can't score chicks with magic.  It's geeky, as mentioned earlier, and unless you've made millions with an internet startup, you aren't going to score with that approach.

Gandalf, on the other hand...