This week was x-mas party week. We had my company's party last night and Tracy's firms party tonight. Sort of the usual corporate party. At Tracy's party, one of the senior partners at the firm recites a long poem he's written about that year at the firm. It's nice in a "I would never do that with my time" kind of way. At our party we hired a magician, which is always great fun. A pretty young guy who was pretty good. Whenever I see a magician, I'm always reminded of my old college roommate Joe Gold. He was a bright, outgoing young magician who is now an actor in Los Angeles last I heard. This kid(he said he was 19) we hired last night was good, a little bit better than Joe was when we were roommates. His sleight of hand was pretty good. He stuck with mostly the basic card tricks. He did a couple of the other types of tricks, but not many. That's just as well because card tricks are the standard by magicians should be judged(illusionists are a bit different). One thing that struck me is that all magicians have the same type of showmanship. They all do the same type of presentations. They have similar setup jokes. They prefer to find your card for you on the 3rd try. They always choose a woman from the audience to help them out with their tricks(maybe because they are always single men).