So, anyway, I took my juggling pins with me to work the other day. Much hilarity ensued.

One of the problems with juggling pins (poorly) is every once in a while you'll become careless, put on too much spin and throw the pin at your face. Ouch.

So far I've managed to avoid serious injury and property damage, but sometimes I get the feeling that it's only a matter of time before I break my glasses and get a black eye. That would be even more embarrassing than throwing the pins at my face in the first place, which is quite bad enough.

Another problem is pins make a lot of noise when they're dropped. Especially if you drop them just right so they bounce a few times, bang into someone's computer case with a satisfying CLANG and then roll accross the floor and under coworkers' feet who of course fall over screaming and making even louder CLANGS when they bang their valuable geek heads against hapless computer cases.

So far the last bit hasn't happened.

This racket and potential for general mayhem is obviously great incentive to juggle properly and not drop the pins in the first place. Very motivating! However, since I rather suck at juggling pins, it also makes me a tad reluctant to practise when there are other people around.

I've settled on the compromise that I practise a bit with a mixture of balls and pins. When I lose control I just ignore the balls and concentrate on catching the pins. Juggling a mixture happens to look relatively impressive, but is actually much, much easier. Good practise though.

Obviously, all this juggling takes place when I should be working. One wonders how many short breaks can be justified with the words: "hey, at least I don't smoke!"

Will I find out before I get a black eye?