This reminds me of an incident that happened not far from where I live a few weeks ago. You may have heard of Tim McLean, who was killed on a Greyhound bus around Portage La Prairie in Manitoba. Some crazy guy on the bus went to the back, picked some random person there (the aforementioned Tim McLean), and hacked him to death with a knife, carried the head around, and it's even been said that there was some cannibalism involved. Around the time of McLean's funeral, two groups made statements that absolutely disgusted me. The first was PETA, which compared this incident to meat-eating in general, and the second was the Westboro Baptist Church from Kansas (which I'm sure you've heard of, they're the ones who picket funerals). They said that the killing was God's way of warning us about liberal policies on abortion and homosexuality, and announced plans to picket the funeral. Luckily for the McLean family, Stockwell Day (who has gone up considerably in my opinion for this) decided that the WBC wouldn't be allowed to cross the border, and tons of local people stood outside the funeral just in case. The WBC seems a little more insane here, in contrast with our pal Vinnie, who just seems smug and pathetic, but in both cases they've forgotten that the people killed were human beings, with thoughts and feelings, who didn't deserve this.
By the way, maybe "someone always screws it up" was an exaggeration. On reflection, it's more like "one time, someone screwed it up", but that sounds less impressive. Also, I'm not new here, it's just my first time commenting.
James @ 14
People screw it up because of a breakdown in communication. You deal out four rows of four cards (face up). Tell someone to pick one and keep it to themselves. They tell you what row it's in. That's where the problems start, because no matter what, someone will get rows and columns confused (I even explained what I meant, but I guess I know a lot of stupid people) and this botches up the rest of the trick.
After that, you pick up the cards, but make sure the four cards in the row your victim selected are on top of the deck. This time you deal them out so the first four cards form the first column (columns are down, rows are across). Ask your victim again what row it's in. The first card in that row should be their card. If it isn't, somebody screwed up somewhere. The rest is just showmanship.
Pick up all sixteen cards (order doesn't matter now; you know which one is theirs), and deal them out in a cross shape:
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- -
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Like that, where each line is a card. Do four of these. Now ask your victim to pick two of them. If the ones they pick contain their chosen card, remove the two they didn't pick. Otherwise, remove the two they did pick. Then ask them to pick one of the two remaining crosses and do the same thing. Then in the last remaining cross, do the exact same thing with individual cards until you're left with just the chosen card. Hopefully, your victim will be amazed and love you forever.
I know a good card trick you can do with just a deck, but people keep screwing it up because they don't know the difference between rows and columns.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2008 | 5 |
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