Why Posting in a Timely Manner is a Good Idea

@ "Note to the FooLish" was written, in part, to satisfy a promise to Strider. Today we realized that I'd forgotten an important note somehow. This must be corrected, to be sure. Which is why I'm posting this, the third in a series. Normally the others in Legion wouldn't let me post this many entries in a row (and I understand that Sabius has one that he wants to post), but they've made an exception for this one. So, without further ado, another note:

@ When attempting any new trick which involves kerosene, fire and a body part - for the sake of argument, let's pretend the trick is a hand transfer* - make sure you know what the trick actually involves before you start doing it. In fact, trying out the trick without the fire and the kerosene first is a good idea. Knowing what the guy who's teaching you the trick means by "fast" is also probably important.
@ As a side note, I have never done a successful hand transfer. I have also never been burned by fire torches...... JüggLer and CΐrKus do that sort of thing.@

FooL

* A hand transfer, as I refer to it here, is done as follows:

• soak 2 torches in kerosene. They actually need to be quite wet with the stuff.
• hold the two torches in one hand, with the wick ends point out horizontally, something like this:
  ,__u__,
  where ',' is the wick end (not lit), '__' is the length of the torch, 'u' is your left hand, palm down (the stick is your thumb). This is all seen from above.
• make sure that the kerosene can is well away and closed. This is a surprisingly important step.
• light one of the torches with the lighter you should not be keeping in your pocket, so that it looks like this:
  #__u__,
  for those who run at my speed, '#' means fire.
• now comes the tricky part, especially for my mediocre text art skills. Take your right hand (the one not holding the torches, and represented by 'v' because I don't know how to get a reverse 'u') and grab the torch which is not lit. This should get some kerosene and some nice black soot on your hand:
  #__u__v
• now take your right hand and grab the lit torch. Your hand should catch on fire right about now. Move your hand really fast and grab the unlit torch, lighting it on fire. By fast, I mean "really blazing fast". This is going to take several illustrations (the dashed lines in the second illustration are the motion lines, showing just how fast that hand is moving):
  
  v#__u__,
  
  ---v#
  #__u__,
  
  
  #__u__#v
• ...remove your hand! You'll burn yourself!
  #__u__# ϋ<- that's smoke coming off of your hand because you didn't move it fast enough.
• And that, folks, is a hand transfer.