In motorcycle acrobatics, the way a wheelie works is the front wheel comes off the ground due to extreme torque being applied to the rear wheel. On more powerful motorcycles, such as those above 500 cc, the way you get the front wheel up is by accelerating, but on smaller bikes you might need to use the clutch and/or “bouncing” the forks (using the rider’s weight to compress the front suspension, so that the recoil will help lift the front wheel on accelerating). The number one thing to remember when doing a wheelie is

to go off of the noise and feel of the engine, not by what the tachometer says–you should be paying complete attention to the road, not your instruments when you do this. I’ve got an awesome video here, about 9 minutes long, that takes you from the very basics and assumes you’ve got no idea what you’re doing, shows you 2

different ways to wheelie a motorcycle, starting with the safest way, and then goes on to show you some cool tricks you can do once you’ve got that mastered:

Additional Resources

Here’s an awesome article that goes into great detail about properly doing a wheelie called ‘Wheelies Explained’.

How to Wheelie a Motorcycle is a post from: Wicked How-To’s

How to Play Moonlight Sonata on Piano is a post from: Wicked How-To’s

Chopsticks are eating utensils that are a pair of small, tapered sticks that are used as the traditional eating utensils of Japan, China, Vietnam, Korea, and Taiwan. It’s thought that they originated in ancient China and then spread throughout Asia. The most common materials used to make chopsticks are bamboo or plastic, but you can also find ones made of metal, ivory, bone, and several different types of wood. I’ve got two different videos here

that both show you how to use chopsticks–I like having multiple videos teaching the same thing, IF they’re both good, because when you’re trying to learn something seeing two different teaching perspectives can really help, plus the first one is aimed at using chopsticks the Chinese way and teaches some Chinese chopstick etiquette and

the second one is aimed at using chopsticks the Japanese way and teaches some Japanese etiquette. Grab your chopsticks and have a look (do it the Karate Kid way: when you can catch a fly with your chopsticks, you are ready to eat out at Asian restaurants without fear of embarrassing yourself ):

How to use chopsticks the Chinese way

Some additional notes on Chinese chopstick etiquette:

• It’s considered acceptable (and a polite gesture) to transfer food to close relatives (e.g. grandparents, parents, spouse, children, etc.) who are having difficulty picking up their food. Also, it is a sign of respect to pass food to any elderly people at the table first before everyone else.
• Don’t tap chopsticks on the edge of your bowl: beggars do this to attract attention.
• Don’t point rested chopsticks towards other people who are seated at the table.

How to use chopsticks the Japanese way

Some additional notes on Japanese chopstick etiquette

• Don’t transfer food from your chopsticks to someone else’s chopsticks. Japanese people will always offer or pass their plate to transfer food. Transferring directly is how bones are passed as part of Japanese funeral rites.
• Place the pointed ends of your chopsticks on a chopstick rest when they’re not being used. However, when a chopstick rest is not available, as is usually the case in most restaurants (which use ‘waribashi’: disposable chopsticks), what you can do is make one by folding the paper case that contained the chopsticks into an improvised sort of rest, like this:

• Don’t cross your chopsticks on the table, as this symbolizes death, or vertically stick them in the rice, which is done during a funeral.
• As with the Chinese, the Japanese consider it rude to rub wooden chopsticks together after breaking them apart, because this says to the host that you think the chopsticks are cheap.
• Don’t hold the chopsticks in your mouth while you do something else like pick up a bowl or plate.
• Don’t use unmatched chopsticks.
• Don’t wash your chopsticks off in your soup or beverage.
• Don’t use chopsticks as hair accessories. Everyone has seen photos of kimono-clad Japanese models and geishas with what appear to be pretty chopsticks in their hair. Those are not chopsticks, they are hair ornaments called kanzashi. Chopsticks are exclusively for use with your food.

Additional Resources and Further Reading

If you want my personnel recommendation for an excellent set of chopsticks for use at home, the best choice by far are these Yamazaki stainless steel chopsticks that I got from Amazon–they’re only about $10, they’re super easy to wash and clean because they’re stainless steel, and they come with a lovely travel case to store them in.

Here’s how to do a cool chopstick trick called ‘floating chopstick’.

How to pimp your chopsticks at PandaPassport.com’s China Blog.

How to Eat with Chopsticks: How to use and hold chopsticks properly is a post from: Wicked How-To’s

Handcuffs use an extraordinarily simple locking mechanism called a ‘warded’ lock, this makes them probably the easiest lock to pick currently in use. Now, you may ask, why would law enforcement agencies use handcuffs when they can be picked so easily? Simple: if those handcuffs are applied properly (and they almost always will be) you will not be able to pick them because you can’t reach the keyhole–you wouldn’t be able to open those handcuffs if someone put a key in your hand! How is this the case? When handcuffing someone, the proper way to do it is to

put their hands behind their back, palms out, apply the handcuffs, and then double-lock them. If this is done, you can’t reach the keyhole with either hand no matter what. Now, what if someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing handcuffs you, what if you want to do this as a magic trick? A ha, now I can help you, in fact I can show you

how to pick a set of handcuffs, assuming your hands are handcuffed in front of you, in under 15 seconds, and it only takes a couple minutes to learn how. I’ve got several videos here for you: the first one shows you the quickest, easiest, and best method of getting out of a set of cuffs by using a bobby pin, the second one shows you how to get out of a set of those plastic handcuffs (aka ‘plasticuffs’, ‘flexicuffs’, or ‘flex cuffs’) that riot police like to use, and how to get out of handcuffs with your WATCH (seriously). Have a look:

How to pick handcuffs with a bobby pin

How to escape from a set of flexicuffs (aka ‘plasticuffs’)

How to pick a set of handcuffs with your watch

Additional Resources

The best site for learning about lock picking, locksport, safecracking, etc. on the internet (I was a member here for years, trust me on this one): LockPicking101.com

If you’re interested in doing this as a magic trick and want to learn some more basic stuff have a look at one of my recent articles: Cigarette Trick How To: Make a Cigarette Disappear (no extra props needed, GREAT bar trick)

How to Get Out of Handcuffs: Break out of handcuffs in 15 seconds flat is a post from: Wicked How-To’s

The smokey eye effect is one of the most popular makeup styles today and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon, so if you haven’t got the proper technique down pat then you’re behind the curve, and it’s something that’s not difficult at all to learn or do. I’ve got two videos here for you so you can learn how to do this, the first one is only about 3 minutes long and it’s done by a MAC makeup expert who works for Ford Models, and

she does the demo with an actual model from Ford, and the second one is an amateur video but I’ve included it because she goes much slower and really takes her time and explains every detail of what she’s doing, which results in it being about 9 minutes long.

Now, a few extra tips for you before you get started:

• The one thing you need to make sure you get right for the perfect smokey eye effect is proper blending: the colors should be blended together as close to flawlessly as you can manage.
• Also, it’s important to pair light base colors with rich, dark colors–the best mixes include: champagne base with bright blue, soft gold base with deep purple on top, and peach base with green hue.
• If you are using liquid liner you can place dots on the lash line and then play connect-the-dots to get a perfectly straight line

Alright, now let’s get started. Grab a mirror and your makeup and have a look at these:

Additional Resources

Here’s an excellent step-by-step article over at AllWomensTalk.com on how to do proper smokey eye makeup.

Here’s another step-by-step tutorial but this one has large close-up pictures to accompany each step, excellent work.

How to Do Smokey Eye Makeup in 5 Minutes at Home is a post from: Wicked How-To’s

I’ve got several videos here that show you a few simple yet VERY effective methods of cheating on tests (this is aimed at high school and college students, although I don’t doubt that it’s applicable elsewhere). We cover the infamous soda bottle label method, and how to do it PROPERLY (there’s a couple of details, like what kind of paper you use, that are very important to not getting caught), the pen method, the eraser method, the blank paper method, plus a few quick tips from me at the end on using technology and gadgets to cheat. Enjoy:

Method #1: The Soda Bottle Technique

Method #2: The Pen Technique

Method #3: The Eraser Technique

Method #4: The Blank Paper Method

I’ll add 3 more very quick methods here at the end for you that I used to use, although I do know that in some areas this doesn’t work as much anymore, there’s still plenty of places where it does: any kind of electronic device can be used to store large quantities of information that you can access during a test. I understand that this doesn’t work sometimes because teachers have caught onto this, but there are still a LOT of teachers who haven’t, or they know about one but they’re clueless about another:

• An oldie but a goodie: put formulas and even short bits of text into the memory of your graphing calculator (TI-83/86/89 whatever) and just pull it up during your math, physics, or chemistry exam.
• Text the information to yourself and subtly check your phone like you got a text from a friend or something during the test (some places this is impossible, other teachers won’t give a shit).
• This one’s very sneaky, my personal favorite: record, in your own voice, the information that you may need during the test on your computer, turn it into an MP3, and upload it to your iPod (or any other MP3 player) and listen to it during the test (many teachers will allow students to listen to music on their iPods during long exams).

Additional Resources

SchoolCheat’s got some tips worth ‘testing’ out, have a look.

This guy is awesome, love the rants about WHY it’s ok to cheat (he’s right, too–can you tell I’m not a fan of institutionalized education? ), plus lots of good tips.

How to Cheat in School on a Test (with instructional videos! :D ) is a post from: Wicked How-To’s

Additional Resources

HammerZone.com has got an excellent page with a full set of instructions on how to do this (they’ve got a knob lock instead, though) with pictures for each step.

How to Replace a Door Handle: Fit and Install a Door Handle Properly is a post from: Wicked How-To’s

I’ve got a very simple, but invaluable, tip for you and an excellent instructional video that shows you how THE “perfect” golf swing is built from the ground up: from the grip and stance all the way through to the follow-through, it’s explained to you in detail, in 8 minutes, by a renowned golf pro. Learning a bunch of very minor details about technique that, IF you got any one of them right might improve your game by a fraction of a stroke or something, is going to do nothing but serve to confuse you and further screw up your game and cost you strokes. KISS: KEEP IT

SIMPLE, STUPID! Right? Well, here’s a simple tip for you that will not only help you improve your swing but will likely do wonders to lower your score as well–let me warn you that you may not like this, it might seem stupid, it might seem counterintuitive, but I urge you to give it a try and look at your

score after a few holes before youpass judgement–here it is:

What’s the longest club that you can hit well, consistently? 3 iron? 5 iron? 7 iron? 3 wood? Ok, whatever that is, you don’t ever hit anything longer than that. That’s it. That’s the magic secret. Yes, this means you tee off with a 7 iron if that’s the longest club you can hit well. Think about it: how many extra strokes is teeing off with a club that you can only hit 150 or 200 yards STRAIGHT (almost every time) going to cost you versus a driver, that’s going to make you slice/hook the damned thing into the woods half that time, that will let you put the ball out to 230 or 250 or 270 or whatever? 1 extra stroke per par 5 (of which there’s only 2 or 3 over 18 holes), MAYBE 1 extra stroke on SOME of the par 4s, and of course it’ll make no difference at all on par 3s? Now, how much

does using the driver cost you considering the fact that you’re probably not even getting it on the fairway half the time or more? Getting a ball out of the woods and back onto the fairway, not to even speak of getting it from the fairway to the green after that, is going to cost you, on average, what two, three,

FIVE strokes sometimes even?! See what I mean? Try it.

Learn the perfect golf swing from the ground up in 8 minutes

Additional Resources

The Golf Channel has an AWESOME section of their website dedicated entirely to instruction (lots of videos), many of it from pros and even tour players that you watch on TV.

Golf Digest Magazine has an excellent area on their website entirely devoted to instruction with articles from the likes of Arnold Palmer, Tiger Woods, and Ernie Els.

Golfinstruction.com is worth a look, lots of articles.

Here’s a list of excellent tips with accompanying photos.

How to Improve Golf Swing: Improve Your Golf Swing in 10 Minutes is a post from: Wicked How-To’s

How to do the “Club Rock”:





How to do the “Ghetto Bounce”:

Additional Resources

Here’s Chi’s (the guy in the above videos) website area where he’s got a bunch more videos on stuff like “how to freak ‘n grind”, etc.

Here’s an extraordinarily useful thread over at dance-forums.com about club dancing, more resources and info than you can shake a stick at.

How to Club Dance: Learn how to club dance in 10 minutes with 2 simples moves is a post from: Wicked How-To’s

drive (must be able to write/burn DVD’s) for either VERY cheap or for free–if you’ll get a broken one from a dump or off Ebay, odds are excellent that the diode works just fine and it’s something else that’s broken, those diodes almost never break, it’s almost always some type of moving part (i.e. a motor) within the drive that broke, or you can just buy a used-but-working one for VERY little.

Method #1: Modified low-power green laser pointer

Here’s the first method. Remember, you’re going to need:

• An inexpensive low-power green laser pointer.
• A pair of pliers (he uses a pair of needle-nose ones)
• A set of micro screwdrivers.
• A soldering iron.

Here’s what to do:

Method #2: Modified DVD burner diode + Maglite

One of the cool things about this one is that DVD drives use several different colored lasers, depending on how old your drive is and

what brand it is, it could be either green, blue, or red (as show in the video). I suspect you could get this to run off of any type of flashlight that you want, including some of the bigger Maglites, but I don’t know why you’d want to as the small AA one is perfect for this.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• A small Maglite (takes 2 AA’s–they sell these things EVERYWHERE, very cheap like 5 or 10 bucks or so).
• A DVD burner (he says 16x, I suspect you could go lower or higher and as long as it can actually BURN DVD’s, it’ll work).
• A set of micro screwdrivers.
• A housing for the laser (you can get the one he recommends here)
• Soldering Iron

Here’s what to do:


Additional Resources and Further Reading

The best place to go for research and asking questions about doing this sort of stuff is the Candlepower Lasers Forum.

Instructables.com has a whole area dedicated to laser pointer projects that’s got tons of stuff in it with 232 members as of now.

HacknMod.com has a really cool pages with 6 different laser pointer projects/hacks.

Burning Laser How-To: Make a burning laser pointer | 2 different methods is a post from: Wicked How-To’s

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