Why the hell are you here?

Inspired by a Cracked.com blog entry entitled "How to Win a Fight Against Twenty Children", I found this little quiz.

28

Mental note: steer clear of groups of 30 or more.

Your result for The Hard like a Rock Intelligence Test...

Above Average Hat Size

Take The Hard like a Rock Intelligence Test at HelloQuizzy

So in today's announcement, WotC declared that there will be neither drafting nor 2HG at the Shards of Alara prereleases -- just Sealed and Open Dueling (using the new Intro packs that aren't even a Constructed-legal 60 cards).

Yeah, that'll help attendance.

Its almost like they want to fail at this point. I don't know what our Shards pre-re will even look like, but I can tell you that whatever happens, nobody will be happy about it.

Like a lot of popular sites out there, every week Cracked.com has a weekly Photoshop contest. Last week, the topic was If Websites Came with Warning Labels. While this entry didn't take top honors, it was easily my favorite and perfectly sums up why I do everything I can to avoid Myspace pages:



Seriously, people. I know a lot of you aren't old enough to remember the horrors of Geocities, but COME THE FUCK ON. Semi-transparent text boxes hovering over wildly-colored backgrounds while animated gifs, some sort of background music that defaults to "on" and at least half a dozen flash apps suck down my bandwitdh? You all fail at Remedial Web Page Authoring: your site is fucking unreadable to human eyes. You fail so hard you aren't even eligible to re-take the course. Just get the fuck out.

Everyone knows the story about Heath Ledger's unfortunate fatal overdose and how playing Joker in The Dark Knight was probably a major cause. Then after the movie crushes anything else playing at the same theater that weekend (a trend which has continued to this day, now three weeks later, although just barely), accusations about Christian Bale abusing his mother and sister crop up.

Just now I read that Morgan Freeman is in serious condition following a car wreck, having flipped his '97 Nissan Maxima (the dude is an Oscar-winning A-list Hollywood actor and he's driving a '97 Maxima? EDIT: Oh, it was apparently owned by the other individual in the car, whose condition is not disclosed) several times after it went off the road.

Details are obviously sketchy at this point, but if he doesn't pull through then TDK could be the most snake-bitten movie ever created -- someone better put Aaron Eckhardt, Gary Oldman, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and even the Nolans under lock and key before they go down too.

UPDATE: Looks like he's going to be OK. Broken arm and some minor injuries, but stable and in good spirits.

Low turnout, as expected, but we should beat Coldsnap's numbers pretty handily. For an interesting change of pace we were actually grossly overstaffed, but on the plus side four people passed their Level 1 Judge tests; whatever winds up happening wiht Shards of Alara, there will be judges out there for it.

With so many people taking tests, I sort of felt left out, so once things had died down to the last flight I decided to head into the Judge Center and take a practice exam. This one was a little different, however, as I took it en Español. I'm not a masochist, so I kept it to an Easy Practice.

I aced it. All 12 questions correct. My last two were gifts, but still.

So the story about the supposed "pregnancy pact" continues, with one of the girls naturally saying that her principal was talking out of his ass and that there was no such thing. Maybe an agreement among one or two friends to help each other raise their kids, but not a pact to get pregnant.

Which I choose to believe... because to believe otherwise is to invite cthonian-levels of brain-dribbling insanity, and I've had quite enough of that in the last month or so.

But with that being said, the whole situation is still spectacularly stupid -- on a scale four times as bad as normal.

In his long career, comedian George Carlin spoke many truths that would otherwise have gone unspoken by the masses. At this time, perhaps the most appropriate is this quote I found on CNN.com: "I don't want to go around describing myself as a 'groundbreaker' or a 'difference-maker' because I'm not and I wasn't."

While that may be true, Carlin was probably the closest thing I ever had to a hero. Many of his philosophies made so much sense that I adopted them as my own or at least used them to support my similar beliefs. His opinions on religion, politics, and life itself were instrumental in calcifying many of mine, the application of logic to an increasingly insane world. It takes a special event for me to attend any sort of live show; I had the privilege of seeing him perform live twice.

He died yesterday of heart failure at the age of 71. He's not in heaven, he's not in hell, and he's not coming back -- he's just gone. And while the world may be a little less for his passing, he will never be forgotten.

Idly checking CNN.com today, I randomly notice a link to a Time story titled "Pregnancy Boom at Gloucester High". I click it out of curiosity, thinking that they have to be talking about one of the other Gloucesters out there (like New Jersey).

I read. First there's the school size of 1200 students, which was dismissed as a coincidence... but then "principal Joseph Sullivan" raises a red flag... and then there's the phrase "Massachusetts fishing town". Uh-oh.

I read on... and I find this:

on hearing the results, "some girls seemed more upset when they weren't pregnant than when they were," Sullivan says. All it took was a few simple questions before nearly half the expecting students, none older than 16, confessed to making a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together. Then the story got worse. "We found out one of the fathers is a 24-year-old homeless guy," the principal says, shaking his head.

Seriously, I know that there are a lot of incredibly stupid girls out there in the world, including in my former hometown. I begrudgingly accept that fact. But -- and I say this in all honesty --

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

It goes on...

The girls who made the pregnancy pact—some of whom, according to Sullivan, reacted to the news that they were expecting with high fives and plans for baby showers—declined to be interviewed. So did their parents.

Well, I'd decline to be interviewed as well if I were an incredibly inept parent raising a daughter who is so fucked up that she actually thought that any part of this "pact" was a good idea.

I hold no feelings of nostalgia for most of my classmates, but even the most white-trash waste of chromosomes back then couldn't have come up with anything this colossally stupid. I go on to read about strollers in the hallways and free on-site day care, and then I wonder what the hell happened to the GHS from which I escaped with minimal mental scarring. It's actually causing me more mental trauma to read about what it's become today, some thirteen years later.

I can only hope that empress_tigress and I are able to bestow EVEN A LICK OF COMMON SENSE to any daughter(s) that we may produce down the road.

(On a side note, this debacle spawned a series of events that lead Kim Daly, the school nurse, to resigning. I have vague memories of a "Ms. Daly," but never really had a reason to visit the nurse; I wonder if she's the same woman? I'll have to check when I get home.)

I've been sitting on this for a while now, waiting for today's official announcement before I was able to discuss the changes to the prerelease. With the official WotC discussion boards currently down (gee, I wonder why?), and strangely no discussion of this on the SCG boards as of yet, I've really only posted my thoughts over on one store's forums; here's what I've got, modified for a non-specific audience:

[First of all], there's more to the story than [what's contained in that one article]. Of course, a lot of that is "behind the scenes" stuff, but as players you guys can still have a lot of input on this.

Think about what made prereleases special, and then consider if a prerelease held at Sci-Fi (or Hypermind, or Hero's Haven, or the Toy Factory, or AFnG, or wherever) would be quite the same thing. Ask yourself how it would really be any different than the Launch Party/Release (which would be on the following week rather than two weeks later).

Think about where, exactly, [all of our new judges] would have received their judge mentoring had this been in effect a year ago[, or even two]. I can tell you that's one factor that has us zebras arching eyebrows...

For the record, I have no clue as to how things are actually going to go down when September 27th rolls around; that's mostly going to be up to each individual store owner/TO -- what Denise at Hypermind wants to do might be very different from what JJ and Zack want to do with [Sci-Fi Genre]. I do know that we'll be taking surveys at the Eventide Prerelease(s) to get a feel for what the players want to do, but by that time it might already be too late for certain things (like finding a reliable venue).

There are additional comments in the thread, but the above is the broad stroke that should cover most of the initial knee-jerk reactions.

The "core" judging staff of Shuffle Up Events has been beating our heads against this for about ten days now, but without being able to discuss it with the stores -- and the players -- not a lot of progress has been made. Mostly it's all theory and speculation at this point. Now that the secret is out, we'll see where things go from here. Bear in mind that what happens in North Carolina may not be the same thing that happens in your neck of the woods; not every premier TO is as generally-liked by the store owners as James. Don't be surprised if the Eventide prerelease next month is the last "big" event you see locally, because the people who are really going to suffer from these changes are the premier TOs.

Got an email today from my dad, with the subject line "I'm ahead". I figured it had something to do with a lucky gambling streak or maybe bowling, but instead the contents were this, pasted word-for-word:

"2 1/2 hours in the ER last night. I now lead in stones 2-1.

22 years between mine."

I wasn't aware that this was a competition, but given what I went through to earn my "point", I kinda hope I lose this one...

Wizards of the Coast announced several changes to the game's printing that will go into effect this fall with the Shards of Alara set. Mark Rosewater (MTG Head Designer) also chimed in on this topic and Creative Team member (head?) Doug Beyer will have a similar column on Wednesday regarding changes to the various MTG-related novels. I posted my initial reactions in the discussion thread for MaRo's column, but that was already 400+ posts long by the time I got there so I figured I'd re-post them here for my own reference.


* Smaller set sizes: excellent choice, no problems here; less chaff = more fun.

* Mythic Rare: Total ambivalence; this could seriously go either way depending on the tournament viablity of these cards. Not having "utility" cards in this slot is one thing, but given the amount of crazy-powerful/expensive Legendary and/or Planeswalker cards lately that would most likely have been Mythic (as others have mentioned: Jitte, Doran, Garruk, et al.), I will have to wait to see how this shakes out. I want to be optimistic about this, even though my initial gut-check response was against it.

* Basics in Boosters: Whatever; smaller set size basically offsets this in Limited, as we're likely getting less crap commons anyway. Will suck when a foil Basic shows up, however.

* Intro Pack: a good idea, but I have one reservation; the Open Dueling program at Prereleases has been incredibly popular in my experience, and it relied on the Theme Decks. If the program continues with the Intro Packs in their stead, then cool.

* Publishing (and Fat Pack) changes: It looks like the Shadowmoor fat pack will be the last non-Core Set Fat Pack that I purchase. I was against most of the changes made to the Shadowmoor FP, and without actually getting the novel there is no longer a reason for me to buy one. I'll still get the Core Set FP because as my store's primary judge I like having the current Core Set's Player's Guide to reference what is and is not legal in Standard.

Overall: I like the ideas behind most of these changes. Let's see how the reality plays out over the next year.

Harvey Korman dies at 81

Rest in peace. I actually watched Young Frankenstein last night, but I think Blazing Saddles, History of the World (Part I), and High Anxiety might be on the docket for this weekend...

No, that isn't referring to any pregnancy on our part. Sorry to get your hopes up, Mom.

Anyway, yesterday empress_tigress and I had some friends over for our increasingly-regular sessions of Smash, Kart, Board Games, and/or Magic. After taking my new "mono" black control deck for a successful smash, I decided to give Kat's aggressive Merfolk some play time. She opted for her Millfolk deck at FNM and it stunk out loud, so I wanted to demo "the deck she should have played" against the guys.

On one game (against a U/G Scryb & Force variant) I actually did the following:

Turn 1 (on the play): Island, go.
Him: Island, go.
Turn 2: Sunken Ruins, Stonybrook Banneret, go.
Him: Llanowar Reborn, go.
Turn 3: (Did not draw a land.) Use Island to tap Ruins for UU. Use one to cast a second Banneret, and then the other to cast a Merrow Reejery, swing for 2.
Him (18 life): Land, Bird, go.
Turn 4: (Still only two lands...) Use Island to tap Ruins for UU. Use one to cast Silvergill Adept, revealing a random Merfolk from my hand, and untap my Ruins with Reejery's ability. Draw for Adept. Use the other U in my pool to tap Ruins for UU. Cast a second Reejery (which I drew off the Adept, or else it would have come down first), untapping my Ruins. Use the U in my pool to tap Ruins for BB (just to be different), cast Infathom Infiltrator and untap both lands. Tap them to add UU to my pool, cast Lord of Atlantis and untap both lands again. Swing with both Bannerets and the original Reejery for 12.
Him (6 life): Uh... (I had a Familiar's Ruse in hand that would have countered anything unpleasant while bouncing my Adept, but he didn't do anything I needed to worry about.)
Turn 5: Swing with everything but my Lord, you take an unblockable 26 thanks to Islandwalk.

He falls to -20, meaning I essentially killed him twice in the span of five turns... off two lands. Yes, it was basically just a goldfish, but there wasn't a whole lot he could have done anyway. Had he found an early Spiketail things might have been different, but not too much.

This deck frightens me.

The Prerelease went well, if a little under-attended; Kat and I played 2HG on Sunday instead of judging, which also went fairly well. Didn't really feel like making a post about it, since I've been preoccupied by other things. However, I was reading the FAQ this morning when I came across something that, on Saturday, I predicted would be in it:

* If you control a Lurebound Scarecrow but no color was chosen for it (perhaps because your Cemetery Puca turned into a Lurebound Scarecrow), the trigger condition will have an undefined value in it. It’ll never trigger, so you won’t have to sacrifice the Scarecrow.

How did I know this would be in the FAQ? Because I had to try and figure out that exact scenario (Puca copies Lurebound) without having the FAQ available to us.

WotC hasn't given Prerelease Judges access to the FAQ since Time Spiral, and almost every time a situation like this comes up. The theory is that we should be able to deduce the ruling from what we already know about the rules, which is technically true, but it just provides a ton of headaches that could easily be prevented -- especially for an obscure corner-case like this. And for what? Preventing spoiler sites from receiving advance information? News flash: they get it anyway.

After much brow-knitting, I made a call that turned out to be correct in spirit (the Puca lives) if not in actual technicality (a color was chosen for the copy even though it wasn't entering play); further on-the-fly investigations to the CR suggested something else afterwards (the Puca copies the choice made when the original creature came into play?), and I found the actual rule (essentially quoted above) a couple of days later. And all the while, I knew that the FAQ would have the answer.

On Saturday I was Head Judge for the Charlotte/Raleigh "City" Champs Finals, held at Sci-Fi Genre Comics & Games in Durham. Nice little store, basically what Hypermind would be if they had a comics/toys focus instead of an educational/games focus. Going in I was expecting as many as 28 players from 14 stores, but sometime between the announcement and the actual event I guess some stores were reassigned to other "Cities" so our max occupancy was only 22; of those 22, we had 19 (with Hypermind's top finalist, Robbie, unable to attend due to extreme illness and two others unaccounted for). That still meant five rounds of Swiss before the cut, but I was familiar with the majority of the players via PTQs so I wasn't expecting too many problems.

In fact, on the whole there were only two issues throughout the entire event. The first was the fact that of 19 players, all but maybe six were running either Faeries or a variation on Reveillark, which meant control-on-control mirrors everywhere and at least one match going to time every round. Every round except the "lightning round", of course, which is what led to the second issue...

After I made the Top 8 Cut, I announced the names of those who made the cut. As I announced them, I noticed that one player was missing. As misfortune would have it, that player happened to be Jonathan Woodward (fractal9091), someone I consider a friend. I had no idea where he went or why he would leave before the cut was announced, which left me utterly confused as to how to proceed. The various DCI documents were no help; the only time I could find a reference to a Top 8 Cut is in this section from the UTR:

If a player withdraws from a tournament after a cut has been made, such as a cut to the Top 8 in a Pro Tour Qualifier, a player is not advanced to replace the player who withdrew.

Since he apparently went missing before the cut, I couldn't consider that rule to be applicable, which left me with two options. Should I consider him a no-show and essentially award his opponent a bye in the first elimination round, or should I drop him from the event and essentially use the 9th-place finisher act as an "alternate"? Given the prizes at stake, I knew that just handing someone a spot in the semifinals would not have gone over well, so I opted for the latter. So I drop him, still completely flummoxed as to why he wasn't present (and his car was gone from the lot) and re-pair the Top 8.

Once I get the Top 8 seated and tell them to get started, guess who shows up. >_<

Apparently he had gone off to eat something after finishing his final round match. He mentioned that he had asked me how much time was left in the round and I answered accurately (25 minutes), but we both failed to take into account that the final Swiss round would end earlier than usual due to all the intentional draws at the top tables (hence "lightning round"). There were other factors as well (like his dining in instead of taking out), but at the end of the day it was still my call that wound up screwing him out of at least a 1st-round bye at Regionals; had I just let the Top 8 stand as originally cut, he would have received a Game Loss for Tardiness (plus the brackets would have been different in general) and at least had a shot plus the guaranteed prize for finishing 5-8th.

In the end, I personally made it up to him by giving him 8 packs of my compensation; it was more than he would have won had he lost in the quarters (4 packs) and the same as if he lost in the semis, but without the byes at Regionals that would have accompanied either of those finishes. I'd like to say that I would have done that for any player in that situation, but it's hard to say. I still think I made the right call as HJ, but it being the right call doesn't make it feel any better.

(On the subject of not feeling any better, I got an email from my mom this morning telling me that her friend -- a woman I had worked with at Ames -- died yesterday of an apparent heart attack. Now there's an awesome way to kick off the week...)

Oh, and as far as Hypermind's other finalist, Troy? He tore up the Swiss with a 3-0-2 record, good enough for 1st place before the cut; he was the only player undefeated and without a draw after three rounds. In fact, he was paired up against Jonathan in the first round, which no doubt helped Jonathan's tiebreakers to the point where he made the cut in the first place! Sadly, Troy wasn't able to keep that momentum going after the cut, as he just missed winning his match against Justin Cavenaugh (winner of our Extended PTQ last month). Justin, it should be pointed out, was the "alternate" for the Top 8 and ultimately finished 2nd. Would Troy have had a shot under the original Top 8 bracketing? Maybe, maybe not -- it's impossible to say. But that's just one more twist that is basically making me want to put that event behind me and focus on this weekend's Shadowmoor prerelease... at which I will be head judging once again... in South Carolina.

Yeah... that should be interesting. Just hopefully not "interesting" in the same way.

I had weaned myself off MTGO a while back (pre-Coldsnap), when the first serious rumblings about v3 started. I didn't think that my increasingly-antique PC would be able to handle whatever unnecessary 3D crap they were going to add to what is still a virtual card game.

Apparently v3 finally went live either today or earlier this week, and it is official: my Win98SE machine (yes, really) cannot run MTGOv3, as it requires at least Win2000.

My collection should still exist, although I'll probably have no way to even access it until I finally get a new machine.

My problem is that I sort of don't even care anymore.

Created by OnePlusYou

Today's XKCD:



I guess Gary never told him that there are no winners in D&D. ;)