Kitten

Kitten

I float

like an amoeba

in a place

where there’s no up

or down

I crouch

in the darkness

afraid

I’ll be seen

I puff

with my spines

like a porcupine

afraid

to be touched.

I swim

toward a glow

a gentle face

an hand outstretched

time to

come out

into the light

10.22.10 10:18pm

The Time I won a Magic Tournament

So last Friday (10/15/10) I plaed in a MTG draft of 19 people.

This is what I drafted:

Creatures:
1 Tel-Jilad Fallen
1 Alpha Tyrranax
1 Bellowing Tanglewurm
1 Skinrender
2 Blight Mamba
1 Ezuri's Brigade
2 Vector Asp
1 Cystbearer
1 Memnite
1 Blackcleave Goblin
1 Plague Stinger
1 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Necropede
1 Sylvok Replica


Other Spells
1 Asceticism
1 Grasp of Darkness
1 Instill Infection
1 Flesh Allergy
2 Untamed Might
2 Horizon Spellbomb
1 Carrion Call

Land:
9 Forest
7 Swamp

Sideboard:
1 Untamed Might
1 Relic Putrescence
1 Blistergrub
1 Instill Infection
1 Withstand Death
1 Razorfield Thresher
1 Blunt the Assault
1 Viridian Revel
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Psychic Miasma
1 Oxidda Daredevil
1 Ferrovore
2 Wing Puncture
2 Ezuri's Archers

First pack I opened I pulled this card:

So I thought, "Cool. Let's try for green, possibly green/black, because I like infect."

The first pack that was passed to me had this in it:

I spent a good several tens of seconds staring at it while surrepstitiously eying the guy sitting on my right, thinking, "I hope whatever you picked over this was worth it."

(It was. He pulled a foil one of these).

I don't remember the order I pulled most of my cards in but I do remember what I opened in my next two packs:

I felt a little bad passing the phoenix, but I was rather strongly into green/black at the time and I'm trying to break my habit of indiscriminately drafting rares, irregardless of their actual value (But it's okay to draft rares that are worth money). A sudden outbreak of laughter from LOML two or three seats down from me told me what color he was in, and that made me nervous.

Match one I was paired against a green/white deck that had some of the same cards I did but was heavy on the metalcraft. It also had fliers and a Sunblast Angel, which completely ruined my life in game 1. Game two I sideboarded in some Ezuri's Archers and Wing Punctures, which made life slightly easier. Game 3 I won due to Untamed Might on an unblocked Wurmcoil Engine, but it was a close thing--one more turn and I would have been dead due to poison counters.

Match two was against a red/green deck that I pretty much overran due to the opponent getting manascrewed. I felt kind of bad about it since the guy looked quite unhappy once I was done with him but there was nothing for it unless I wanted to make bad plays--and those have a way of turning on a person.

Match 3 was against LOML, who had a nasty red deck that burninated the shite out of me on game 1--well, that and his Steel Hellkite. The second game I managed to Flesh Allergy his Precursor Golem, netting him a major loss of life.  I won the third game after doing a Sylvok Replica number to his Hellkite.

Match 4 was against a blue/white deck where I won mainly due to the dint of having infect creatures shrinking his oversized defenders down to killable levels. I lost game 2 due to not being able to get rid of his flyer and things pretty much being stalemated on the ground. Game 3 went to time but was won by the dint of a great deal of creatures, not all that could be blocked.

So I won 8 packs for being first, and LOML won 6 packs for being second. It made for a good night.

P.S. And if anyone knows of a good way to make nice little Magic decklists that don't require me to indivually link every single card, they would earn my eternal love and gratitude.

Turtle Shark

A few weekends ago LOML and I went down to the bay to get our feet wet. There was an overabundance of people, as there tends to be on a Sunday afternoon, but since we had driven all of ten minutes to get there it seemed reasonable to stay. At least for a little bit. Have I mentioned I tend to not like large crowds of people?

Anyway, so LOML and I are standing up to our waists in mildly tepid water a good twenty feet or so from the next nearest knot of humanity, talking about God-knows-what, probably games, when LOML says, "Look out! You're about to be hit by a --"

CRASH!

Something banged into the back of my knees.

It was this huge turtle. Probably a good yard or so in diameter. We watched it drift past us with no regard for us whatsoever. It was as if we were merely fog in the turtle's world and he figured we'd either move out of the way or not, it didn't matter.

He drifted on towards a group of children. LOML and I watched in anticipation.

Suddenly, little kids started jumping around and flailing on the water. Cries of "What's that?" and "Wow" broke out after the initial flailing.

The turtle just went out his business, eating algae, ignoring the flock of human spawn that had gathered around to touch it. He also had slime on his shell. Not something you'd normally think of being ON a turtle, but there you go.

Then he swam out to sea and lived happily ever after. Maybe.

Airports and Sleep 2

So apparently I don't sleep in airports. Or planes. I was reaching a point on Monday night where I was wondering if I would ever sleep.

So, while the SACNAS conference was fun, it was strained a little for me because I didn't get enough sleep and my ability to mimic human behavior decreases sharply with the amount of sleep I'm not getting.

After the conference I went to see some people I haven't seen in over two years. This list includes my grandparents, brother, cousin, and friends (mostly people I used to play Magic with), and some people I haven't met at all (my brother's boy and my cousin's daughter). 

For the trip back I was requested by LOML if I could please collect his Rifts books that he had left at a friend's place and bring them back. I said I would.

All 70,000 70 pounds of them.

Between this picture and the airport, however, two of my brain cells randomly banged together and made me realize that hauling 70 pounds of books in as my carry-on luggage was a recipe for my arms being two feet longer by the end of the day. Or my shoulders being torn from their sockets. Or me being rendered a paralyzed mass of goo in the middle of the airport. Or someone getting fatally concussed as the duffel bag tumbled from the overhead compartment.

Plus, I can't lift that much weight over my head anyways.

So I checked the duffel bag into the checked-in luggage while stuffing 20 pounds of books into a random cloth bag I looted from the SACNAS conference. I discovered that 20 pounds of books was sufficient to make me pledge to only carry a lightly-packed bag next time I felt the urge to travel.

But I've got LOML's eternal gratitude and a status of a favor permanently owed. That's worth it, right?

And now I want to play a Crazy. From Rifts.

P.S. The duffel bag was a casualty of this trip. May it rest-in-peace-in-the-closet-because-it-has-too-much-sentimental-value-for-me-to-throw-away.

Airports and Sleep

Ahh, the lovely feeling of floating in air while simultaneously feeling the incredibly strong pull of gravity.

Strange things seem to happen when there is massive sleep deprivation, i.e. I happened to not sleep at all while traveling on an 6 hr (more or less) flight across the Pacific and am now sitting in an airport for three hours waiting to catch another flight. Somebody's spawn is working it's way up to a full scale bawl and big words are starting to get difficult to write. Oh, and my verbal English comprehension is slithering down the drain but no worries, right?

The pizza I had for breakfast (at 5:30am) was slightly burned around the edges, but still tasted pretty good.

The "free" wifi here only lasts for 45 minutes, which I consider sucky seeing as I'm here for 3 hrs. At least it means probably not moving to plug in my laptop because there's only so much I want to do on my computer at 6:30am that doesn't involve the internet.

At least I've stopped twanging like a high-pitched amateur violinist's violin.

Scars of Mirrodin: I'm a Woman In Love

Check out these hotties:

So I indiscriminately like angels. Bite me.

I should warn you, though: Not many things that bite me live for very long.

Of Blonds

I had an encounter with a blond today. It was definitely one of those encounters-of-the-blond kind that you normally only get in blond jokes. Insert standard blather here I have nothing against blonds and some of my best friends are blonds, but blather blather blah you can't make this up. Really.

So I'm working at the circulation desk in the library, doing my cheery best to cater to the needs and wishes of the mortal souls that come up to my desk, at least when it comes to library services:

When this girl chick female human comes up to the desk to return a set of headphones and asks for her driver's license back.

Quick review of library policy:

• You need to be a registered student.
• You must have your picture ID (either student card or driver's license) to check out books, headphones, study rooms, etc.).
• We do not keep IDs at the desk while you are using said headphones, study rooms, books, etc.. We haven't as long as I've been there, and I do not anticipate this policy changing. We do, however, charge books and headphones, etc. to your account so that if you're late returning them, we can hang you upside down and shake change out of your pockets.

But we do not take IDs hostage to ensure the safe return of borrowed items.

So, I was puzzled. A search of the lost and found drawer yielded no licenses,and no other possible places yielded the missing license. The blond in question named the person who had been on desk at the time and insinuated that said person had kept the license for nefarious purposes. All this right before finding said license in her wallet.

So I spent five minutes telling this person that the person had asked for her license so she could look up her name in the computer so that she could charge the headphones out. We do it to everyone who wishes to borrow headphones. Then we give said IDs back.

It's people like this than make me certain my supervisors will authorize me setting up a pit trap in front of the circulation desk.

So I haven't mentioned the spikes yet. Shhh.