After a month Joker Joker finally arrived! Is this good enough? It was only after emailing Magic Lab 3 weeks after I bought it that I reminded them to post it... Their reply was: I was not aware of your purchase, I'm away at the moment but will send it next week. Had I not emailed, it might not have come to their attention, which I informed them in a subsequent email as being slightly worrying. The impression I got was of a business that was very poorly run.
The benefit was the fact that Magic Lab was the cheapest, but it has made me think twice about ordering any more Gordon Bean products.
In any case, I've vowed not to purchase any more packet effects, and to concentrate on impromptu effects. I think part of the pleasure to buying packet effects is to do with the accumulation of all those jiffy bags, and the notion of filling up a drawer with magic items. I suppose on a subconcious level this is an acknowledgement of my childhood when I was a selfish brat hoarding my toys, and that amassing such a collection of magic is the equivalent of filling up a toy chest. I mainly bought this as I liked the look of the booklet cover.
Whilst I've yet to try this on a "proper" spectator, it is straightforward, and is a blank canvas for you to put your own presentational spin on it - I think blase and direct presentations would work as equally well as a more drawn out, mental magic presentations with some flowery patter - the instructions suggests an envelope prediction. Interestingly, I've thus far only shown this to my mum, and presented it in the context of seeing whether my classic force looks more natural (I don't refer to it as a Classic Force, of course; rather, that "move where I make you pick a card"), and I suppose this could be the hook if you were showing it to other magicians.
My gripe is the fact that you need to ensure that your usual deck matches the effect, and whilst good value, I do think the effect is a bit tight fisted in not providing a certain something for magicians who use either a red or blue deck - at neglible cost to the producer.
As has been said by many comments on this and other forums, such as the Cafe, Magic Bunny, etc, (also check out
http://www.mylovelyassistant.com/index. ... ay&rid=243), Los Angeles Open is the superior effect, and it was this that I bought the effect for. It's a good effect, but equally something you can easily live without.