Happy Holidays guys,

Christmas is here and it comes with a nice red sack filled with shiny gifts for you, my loyal and adorable readers.

I’ve been talking to a few friends and companies about sponsoring a unique giveaway with magic products, playing cards and collectors’ items… because I know everyone loves free stuff, am I right? ;)

What first started as a small contest for Black Friday has turned into one of the richest giveaways with contributions from the main companies in the business and big names from card flourishing, magic, hypnosis and mentalism.

You are the ones that make .thecuso and I want to thank you for being there everyday, sharing your videos and ideas and helping others with your tutorials and constructive comments.

Christmas is a good time to give back and reward you for being part of this growing family.

“There are 52 Christmas packets for 52 different winners with an estimate total value of over $1200 in magic gifts.”

Before I explain the rules of the game let’s take a look at the good stuff.

THE PRIZES

1 Pack of Signed 1st Edition Smoke and Mirrors by Dan and Dave’s (one of each).
2x Downloads of your choice from Vanishinginc Magic Store.
2x Decks of Bicycle 125th Aniversary from Aceking
3x Packs of 1 Black and 1 White Arcane Playing Cards.
3x Karnival Assassin decks from trickshopmagic
2x “One-Hand Popover” DVDs from Aaron Fisher
1x “GENESIS” Download from Andrei Jikh
1x “Surfaced” DVD from Chad Nelson
2x Signed Copies of 1st ed. “Inside” from Daniel Madison.
6x Uncut sheets of Bicycle Raiders From MagicNetwork
2x “My night with a stripper” DVDS by Chris “Orbit” Brown
1x “Stain/Shiv” DVD by Andrew Mayne
1x Copy of Hong Wong’s hypnosis DVD “ZAP” from Jay Noblezada
1x Full “Reality is Plastic” Hypnosis Book and DVD set from Anthony Jacquin
1x “Manchurian Approach” Hypnosis DVD set from Anthony Jacquin and Alakazam
1x $200 worth annual subscription to MagicMez
2x Packs of 3 Red/Blue Bicycle Vintage Racer Backs from Eyellusionist
2x Packs of 3 Red/Blue Tally Ho Fan Backs from Eyellusionist
2x Packs of 3 1st edition Bicycle Raiders From MagicNetwork
6x PDF downloads of your choice from Dee Christopher
1x $25 gift certificate to spend on Dan and Dave’s On Demands
1x “Thunderbird” PDF from Lee Asher
3x 1-on-1 Training Videos (of your choosing) from Theory 11
5 “Devious” PDF from Geraint Clarke

How to win

To enter the giveaway, all you have to do is leave a comment below before everyone else.

Yes, that’s all.

The first 20 people that leave a comment will receive a prize from the above list. 100% sure.

The rest of the gifts will be assigned at random from all the comments received before the 25th of December, just make sure you use your personal email when you post the comment so we can contact you if you win.

RULES

In order to participate, you must write a Christmas related comment. It could be a quote, a funny line, something cheerful or simply your best wishes for the holidays. Be creative and original, but please try not to be repetitive.

Want a suggestion? Start writing it down right now and store it somewhere in your computer so when the time comes you can copy-paste it right away. It will save you some precious time.

How will you know when the comments are open?

I highly encourage you to subscribe to the rss feed or email newsletter, friend me on facebook and follow me on twitter.

Especially the last ones… because there, I’m going to announce the official launch in real time and give you some clues and hints prior to the event.

Hey, that’s optional, you can always try the oldschool “refresh page” method muahaha!

How to double your chances of winning

Here is a little trick you can do to double your chances of winning one of the gifts.

With your twitter account follow @BestMagicDeals and retweet the following message:

“@BestMagicDeals RT to Win over $1200 worth of magic, cardistry, poker and hypnosis products. More info at http://bit.ly/santacuso”

Sounds good, right?

Stay tuned and alert, Santa Cuso is watching you…

Good luck,

-Alejandro Portela

—

Looking for good magic coupon codes to save on your orders? Take a look at Best Magic Deals…

My friend Kate, Ekaterina Dobrokhotova, has just entered a video contest and she asked me for a little help on promoting her entry. As I did in the past for Shoeman and CJ here is the post to support her. I hope you do the same, specially after reading what she’s got to offer in return for the favour.

Here is her message:

Hi everyone,

As you already know who I am, I won’t start off with an introduction, but rather with a little favor. As some of you know, I work in Show Business, Modeling and currently completing a bachelor degree in Marketing and I found a perfect job contract: International Shopping Consultant. The application to this job required the production of a video entry and the winner of the job title is based on BUZZ alone.

Here is the favor part: I need you to COMMENT (recommend me for the job), RATE (5 stars) and SHARE this video such that I beat the current highest viewed video.

I’d like to take this job offer as an opportunity to also give back to the community.

Here is how we will play this out:

Prizes

2000 views:

randomly chosen commenter will receive 2 decks of cards from the cards that I own… could be Arcanes, Wynns… you get my drift, but I decide.

6000 views:

I donate the sealed ANACONDA DVD to .thecuso’s upandcoming section.

12 000 views:

I donate the SECRET BOOK OF DE’VO volume 1 to .thecuso’s upandcoming section.

Over 12 000 views

: I will do more draws among comments, but we still have to get there, needless to say, I feel very generous.

How to vote

Here is my video entry: http://job.letsbuyit.co.uk/EkaterinaDobrokhotova

You may also check it on YouTube and directly comment and rate there:
International Shopping Consultant Entry: EKATERINA

IF I get the job, here is the list of cities I will visit: Berlin, London, Milan, Paris, New York City, Hong Kong and Tokyo. I will make sure I get to jam with as much folks as possible, so you know what you need to do!!!

Thanks for the support,
Ekaterina

—

So here is what you want to do…

Let’s go viral

-Play the video a few times or get your drinking bird to click the play button while you are practicing your bottom deals.

-Share the video in the forums. Not only magic forums but in the offtopic section of every nerdy forum that you are registered. In the thread topic you can put something like “What do you think about her legs?”, “I think she’s got a sexy accent” or something like that…

-Write a blurb on Facebook and upload the (not so)Secret Books(anymore) photo into an album and tag everyone there with a link to the video in the description.

-Retweet this post on twitter. It always works.

-Email it to your friends asking for feedback on your potential girlfriend. “Yo guys she does cardz just like me! Do you think I should ask her out?”

-Do all of the above mentioned things and pray to your favourite deity.

Alejandro Portela

Here is a nice promotion from the E guys. Could be the best campaign this year… I wonder how T11 is going to respond to this… Anyway thanks BestMagicDeals for the post ;)

Here we go…

The guys at Ellusionist have gone crazy. For these Christmas Holidays they bring us a contest where you can win from a $1500 credit card to spend at their store and a 32gb Ipod Touch loaded with Magic DVDS to hundreds of Arcane decks and even some ultra rare 1st edition Black Ghost Decks, yeah, those you saw at eBay for $500 a couple of months ago.

Here are some of the goodies up for grabs…

-1500 USD to spend at Ellusionist
-32gb 3rd gen Ipod Touch loaded with How to do Street Magic, Revolution, Shapeshifter, Crash Course 1, Crash 2, Ninja 1, Ninja 2, Kard Klub, Inside Magic, King Rising, Hover Card, and a backup DVD of each.
-45 minutes private training session with Brad Christian
-Hundreds of Arcane Playing Cards and Arcane Clips
-Uncut 1st Edition Black Ghost Deck Sheets
-Gaff uncut sheets
-Ultra rare 1st edition Black Ghosts
-Arcane Deck Uncut Sheets
-Ellusionist Street Bag loaded with DVDS
-Thousands of tattoos.

They have put out a special page where they explain how to get all those amazing prizes.

Go check it out now: Ellusionist Holiday Giveaway

Holly shiznit! Check out Brad’s S Fans!!! They are the best I’ve ever seen!!! ¬¬

Let’s start a new section here. I’m going to call it Up and Coming and I’m going to be posting videos of beginners and amateurs that I think might hit hard in the future if they keep up the good work.

I mainly do this to encourage everyone to start being creative from their early days on card flourishing and move away from topics and overused patterns.

I’ll try to post at least once a week to leave you guys enough time to discuss positively the ups and downs of the videos in order to help them, from our experience, to become better flourishers and eventually kick our asses.

I might also consider doing a few unexpected contests every X months to see who is helping the most and even reward your favourite beginners.

The top contributors will get to chose their favourite “Up and Comings” to share the sweet prizes i’ve been stocking up for you all this time in my basement.

How can you help?

Post comments, give some advice, teach them something, retweet the posts, share them on facebook, introduce them to your friends, meet up, do collabs, form a group, get involved.

When I say there will be prizes I’m talking in terms of bricks of cards, maybe DVDs too, you name it. Trust me, you will love to take part in this iniciative.

You know this is not a forum, this is a family!

Start now.

-Alejandro Portela
.thecuso

Photography by Eugene Soh

We’ve just hit the deadline so the contest is over. It’s a shame that so many of you couldn’t make it to the “list” even though the rules weren’t that hard…

My goal with this little competition was to encourage you to be more active in the blog comments by giving you a visual “identity” that you can use not only here but in many other blogs all over the internet.

If you’ve been subscribed for a while then you know how much I like videos where people show their faces or incorporate their personality somehow into their performances. I’m one of those that think card flourishing is more than cards and hands, and that’s what i want to see here in my blog.

Here is the list of participants, in order of posting, that qualified for the great prize (yet to be chosen by the winner) sponsored by Jason Brumbalow and his crew.

Ben
John
-Mike-
Ehsawn
Håvard
Vannagh
dimitri
Joe Bennett
Justin
C3rb3rus (Abe)
SGP17
Dris (Vincent Chu)
Sean
Frezzingaces
Jamal
Niall
hansheng
Milligan618
shad312
Lawrence093
Litodus
dasuprememep
DrfHono
DrfHono
Cam L
Matt H
Tarvi
Chotu90
Nebelfuchs
Nebelfuchs
RC
Slpk360
htvargas
Chin-may29
Chin-may29
cHriSTiAN
TuTanKaMeeN
TuTanKaMeeN
danilotitato
jasonffx
jasonffx
Chriz0r
Jowee
Enigmagico
sohfresh
Jaems
wongster88
Mathematician2
shimon
Billy
R12
Mike D
Lucifuge
guikatinskas
Laha
Flavio Amurrio-Moya
Flavio Amurrio-Moya
Leonel
ramonfrolik
Tristan Buckley
Daniel
vietispimp
Pakuni
Jeff
Luke
heavenbinder
heavenbinder
wZEngima
Gytis Siskauskas
Gytis Siskauskas
Zejams
Garry
Omiga
illuzyonist
JaguarJameson
JaguarJameson
Styler
ant
Thijs
Thijs
Gene
Cardsharkrefah
Cardsharkrefah
ian
Skruch
Luka Malensek
Johnohue
shadowlion63
KoSpades
Oskiper
Tony V
Andre
jjbuczynski
williamcote
McCookSax
kong
kennyworks
Gruenebach
Cole Stanford

As you can see only the people with a gravatar are on the list, and only those that submited a link to a video have two entries.
I’m now proceeding to input this list into http://random.org/lists/ to see who comes on top.

Good luck.

…
…
…

And the winner is…

There were 99 items in your list. Here they are in random order:

1. Luka Malensek
2. DrfHono
3. Vannagh
4. Frezzingaces
5. Daniel
6. Luke
7. Flavio Amurrio-Moya
8. Chin-may29
9. Lucifuge
10. Gruenebach
11. kennyworks
12. hansheng
13. htvargas
14. Gytis Siskauskas
15. williamcote
16. Tony V
17. C3rb3rus (Abe)
18. sohfresh
19. TuTanKaMeeN
20. Andre
21. KoSpades
22. shimon
23. Cole Stanford
24. dasuprememep
25. Skruch
26. Thijs
27. jjbuczynski
28. Nebelfuchs
29. Oskiper
30. Ben
31. shad312
32. ramonfrolik
33. heavenbinder
34. ant
35. R12
36. heavenbinder
37. Flavio Amurrio-Moya
38. Thijs
39. Nebelfuchs
40. -Mike-
41. Sean
42. Matt H
43. Dris (Vincent Chu)
44. Litodus
45. Gytis Siskauskas
46. Tristan Buckley
47. Slpk360
48. ian
49. Jowee
50. Håvard
51. Chin-may29
52. Chotu90
53. wZEngima
54. Enigmagico
55. Cam L
56. wongster88
57. Jamal
58. Cardsharkrefah
59. dimitri
60. Jaems
61. Zejams
62. illuzyonist
63. Pakuni
64. Leonel
65. Tarvi
66. Omiga
67. Milligan618
68. Justin
69. jasonffx
70. JaguarJameson
71. Johnohue
72. Jeff
73. vietispimp
74. Garry
75. JaguarJameson
76. Mathematician2
77. guikatinskas
78. Lawrence093
79. kong
80. Mike D
81. Styler
82. Joe Bennett
83. John
84. Niall
85. SGP17
86. Laha
87. McCookSax
88. Cardsharkrefah
89. RC
90. shadowlion63
91. Gene
92. TuTanKaMeeN
93. cHriSTiAN
94. danilotitato
95. Billy
96. jasonffx
97. Ehsawn
98. DrfHono
99. Chriz0r

Timestamp: 2009-08-10 11:32:41 UTC

Congratulations Luka Malensek and thanks to everyone that participated. I wish you best luck in the upcoming competitions (will be soon so don’t run away boys!).

Six Bicycle Ghost decks flying to Luka’s today!

1. Luka Malensek Says:
   July 31st, 2009 at 11:16 pm editBicycle Ghost deck….the best one ever…

Thanks again,

-Alejandro

It’s summer at .thecuso and i thought that a little constest giveaway would be the perfect holiday gift for my dear subscribers.

I’ve been talking to Jason Brumbalow, General Manager at Ellusionist, about their policy towards the cardistry & XCM worlds and he ended up admitting that they owe us a little more attention, so from now they’ll try to listen to what we have to say because we are, as he said, “no longer a minority”. Watch the official contest announcement from Jason, you might be able to catch a glimpse of the “super secret” project they are working on. arcane deck

Since there are so many competitions going on right now in the other communities we are going to keep this a simple as possible to give everyone a chance to go home with their pockets full of cards.

All you have to do is leave a comment below with the name of your favourite Ellusionist deck.

Here are the rules to follow:

1-You MUST post a comment with a valid email address for us to contact you if you win.
2-You MUST have a Gravatar account for us to validate your identity. (Go to Gravatar.com to get one)
3-You MUST NOT comment more than once under different nicknames. (we will check the IP)

What do you get?

You choose the prize yourself! You will get a six pack (half brick) of your favourite deck shipped free to anywhere in the world from Ellusionist.

Want more?…

Spread the word in the forums, facebook and twitter and we’ll consider rising the pot. Every little move counts.

Optional work to double your chances

You can also leave a little explanation about why you’ve made that choice and even link us to a video of yourself performing with that particular deck.

1- It can be a new video or an old one that you have uploaded to youtube or vimeo.
2- You must put “http://thecuso.info” url in the video description.
3- It can be a routine, a deck review or just you talking to the camera.

Your name will appear twice on the Random list.

Deadline

You have until the 10th of August to post your comment. All participants will be thrown into a Random.org list and the winner will be announced here in the blog and my twitter.
…

Good luck to everyone!

-Alejandro Portela

Shoeman contacted me to give him some help with a talent contest that is being held in an Israeli website, here is what he said:

http://www.flix.co.il/tapuz/bezeqint/showVideo.asp?m=3066073

If you want to skip the entire explanation below, just enter the link and hit on ‘5′

Hey guys it’s shoeman, I entered an Israeli video contest with the theme of “film something you can do fastest”..
So obviously I went and filmed some card moves, it’s a video for laymen so some of you might not like it too much but maybe you will idk..
the prize is about 12,000 US dollars and the judging is based on votes, so I would appreciate your votes

*****how to vote*****
just go to the video page and click on the balloon with the number “5″
one you’ll click it you’ll see the number above it (the ‘how many ratings’) go up, that means your vote has been registered, after the number goes up you can try clicking again, sometimes it works :P
i’ll appreciate every vote, and dont worry about the low score, every video starts with an initial low score.

1st Place

Variety by Hyo

2nd Place

NaffStyle by Brendan Conner

3rd Place

Volatile by Damien Lee

Here are the prizes again:

Winner:

* 12 of David Blaine’s Split Spades ‘Lions‘ of your colour choice (Or mixed)
* 1 DVD Copy of ‘Control‘ by Wayne Houchin
* 6 Brown Wynn Decks
* 1 Wayne Houchin & Daniel Garcia Ultragaff Deck

2nd Prize:

* CoinTwo by Homer Liwag (DVD)

3rd Prize:

* Believe by Joel Paschall (DVD)

Congratulations to all participants from Matt, Tom and Alejandro.

Giovanni didn’t spend much time coming up with a title for his Your Style competition entry but we can forgive him for the good moves he includded in it.

I specially liked those ace productions and the fact that you showed your face in the video. For me that’s a key factor nowadays, its hard to remember a flourisher’s name if you can’t associate it to a portrait.

I hope my interviews will help you solve this particular issue.

Nice video Giovanni, keep it up and good luck!

Another good Your Style entry by my friend Gary Diaz.

Garry A’s Your Style competition entry. I liked those Huron Low’s “Firefly“-kinda-moves and the watch spins.

Nice stuff man.

Vol.at.i.le(adj)- Unpredictable, changeable, explosive.

My one year video featuring some of my created material variations on tricks.

-Damian L

I personally loved this video. Although it’s a classic style of video-making, indoor background and no parallel theme, it showed and focused on the cards and the flourishes themselves.

The editing was clean and clear, the moves were a bit familiar to all of us at first but very well combined in an almost uncut cardistry routine that finished with some gems like that circle display.

Smooth, creative and stylish even in the credits at the end. And he also includded his own Nebula sequence!

Watch out for this guy because he’s here to kick some asses.

Another great video from Your Style Competition.

The deadline has come and all the videos are already submitted. Now it’s time for us to judge them and find the winners.

I’ll be posting some of the videos here in the blog but if you want to watch them go to the new media section at themagicreview.

Here is one i’ve been looking up to ever since i knew he was entering the competition:

Brendan Conner – Naffstyle

If you want to know more about the competition rules and the prizes go to www.twozwozer.blogspot.com

Hey all, heres an update.

The videos received so far, have been incredible.
5 Entries have been received, but they have all been brilliant and we look forward to seeing more.

‘Flashy’, ‘Technical’, ‘Creativity’, ‘Unique’ and ‘Elegance’

We have also updated the prizes

Second: CoinTwo by Homer Liwag

Third: Believe (DVD) by Joel Paschall

As well as the massive first prize.

Because of this we have extended the closing date until the 15th of June.

Click here to read the rules.

Have Fun and remember, any questions, email me at Twozwozer@hotmail.com or contact Blink through www.themagicreview.com

Cheers, Tom
http://twozwozer.blogspot.com/

Come on guys, only 5 entries? Don’t miss these amazing prizes!

Time for a contest.

Here’s the deal. What Matt (Blink) and Tom (Twozwozer) would like you all to do is to make a video. Not just any video, a video showing us your style.

Your style of Magic Or Flourishing.

Here are the rules:

• The video theme must be about “Your Style”
• The video must be no longer than 3 minutes long.
• The video title must be just one word describing “Your Style”
• The video can include both Magic and Flourishing
• The video must be family friendly.

And now, the prize for the winner:

• 12 of David Blaine’s new ‘Lions’ of your colour choice (Or mixed)
• 1 DVD Copy of ‘Control’ by Wayne Houchin
• 6 Brown Wynn Decks
• 1 WH & DG Ultragaff Deck

All of the above is up for grabs, and dependant on the amount of entries, 2nd and 3rd Prizes will also be given.

ENTRY DATE CLOSES MAY 31st 11.59pm EST
Check out www.themagicreview.com & www.twozwozer.blogspot.comfor more information
So get out there and start filming!

Thanks,
Matty

—-

Whenever you have your video leave the link to it in the comments please.

After initial hesitation, Kevin Ho from The Virts has finally agreed to do an interview for the blog.

In addition to answering the questions I’ve given him, he will also be answering select questions asked by readers.

So if you have a question that you’d like to ask him, please leave it in the comments section of this post.

We will choose the ones we consider most relevant and interesting, so please don’t ask things like whats his favourite lingerie (it’s Pampered Passions.)

In addition, you’ll get your name credited in the video interview if your question is chosen so think twice before you select them.

Please ask only one question per reader.

Good Luck,

Alejandro