Thrusty Thursday: Thomas Dietz

Ah, German technical juggling phenom Thomas Dietz… Truly, one of the most potent and ridiculous crushes I've harbored in the past decade. How does one stumble upon a juggling fetish, you may be asking yourself? Well, it happened to me in 2006, back when I lived in an apartment with a TV and a cable service. One of said cable service's channels was ESP2, a dumping ground for sports broadcasting of murky and miscellaneous persuasions. One afternoon while I was cleaning, I flipped channels, looking for something to keep me entertained. What should I come across but the World Juggling Federation Championship! I was entranced. I sat on the floor in front of the screen the entire time and got nothing done. Afterward I feverishly searched the guide to see when it would next be re-aired (at about two a.m. the next evening, I believe) so I could watch it again. Then I ordered the previous year's competition DVDs from the WJF website. Then I Googled Dietz and lost hours of my life watching and rewatching his ridiculous and addictive videos.

But where to go from there with such an all-powerful crush? This is pre-manfriend, I should point out; I was a free agent during the time of this most odd infatuation. Well, the next step in stalking a German juggling phenom is to convince two of your best and most up-for-it girlfriends to rent a Zip Car and take a roadtrip to Connecticut to attend the next summer's World Juggling Federation Championship, live and in person! While there, get heckled in the lobby by the attendees of the exhibition center's neighboring anime convention. Oh yes, competitive juggling is even less cool than anime. Or so they'd like you to believe.

By the time I attended the 2007 convention (of which Dietz was the overall winner, swoon) the manfriend was in the picture. It took much convincing to make him believe the tickets had been purchased well in advance of his materialization (which they had). Still, it was somewhat guiltily that I flounced off to watch Thomas Dietz in all his ball-handling, club-tossing, ring-flinging glory. Wistful sigh. He seems to have gone a bit quiet since 2008, and I can only assume it's because he's campaigning mightily to get juggling included in the 2012 Summer Olympics, a cause I would heartily support.

But talking about juggling's no good. Here are a couple of videos I downloaded forever ago, no longer available on YouTube. To the makers of said videos, if you removed them for a reason, please don't sue me. Just ask and I'll take them down.

Without further ado, world-class German jugglage:

More jugglage, plus Thomas shows you how to bake a very tall cake. He's so versatile: