Last Day

I woke up at 4:30 drenched in sweat because at some time around Midnight I thought "Well there, it should be cool enough now to turn off the air conditioning and just open up a window". And so here I am, sitting in my tighty-whiteys and waiting for the house to cool down to match the 66-degrees it currently is outside before the sun comes up.

As predicted, I passed out at around 6pm last night in that loverly air-conditioned bedroom of ours and slept off-and-on for 10 hours. There were phone calls I don't remember, there were interruptions from the cat and the dog that are barely memories now... and I slept. It was good :)

Not sure what this last day of being alone is going to bring with it, but it's off to a really early start! Maybe there will be naps?

TAGGED! Thankful Three!

Was tagged by my cousin Katy (over on Facebook) tagged me in a challenge to name Three Things that I'm thankful for, for three days (so nine things), and tag 3 people to do the same (so nine people). HOW EXCITING! Remember when these things were all the rage here on Livejournal?

(btw, doing this on LJ because some folks I would like to tag are over here instead of Facebook).

SO! MY FIRST THREE!!!

1) BEST FRIENDS - I have three Best Friends (Crystal, Alex & Stephen) and I love each one of them in separate-but-equal ways, and I'm super-thankful for that! Three people I know that I can tell ANYTHING to and know that I'll still be loved - how awesome is THAT?

2) HILLS AND VALLEYS - I've been super-depressed lately, but the main thing that has kept me going is just knowing that however LOW things may get for me *now*, that just means that the next HIGH will just seem that much higher! Depressed-me knows that the highs are coming and so he keeps on plugging along and sure enough BAM! Here I am on the upward slope climbing my way back up as we speak!

3) MOLLY - I love my daughter more than I ever thought I could ever love ANYTHING. Like, I thought I loved my nieces and my wife and my mom and all that stuff, but WHOA DO I LOVE THAT LITTLE GIRL! At least HALF of every day is spent thinking about what I can do to make her happy, and she makes me happy in return!


Okay, so the TAGS in this first post will be.... tfcocs, musical_junkie and aurora77. Relax... even if you weren't tagged, you can go ahead and do this too :)

Maaaaaaaagic!

Since today was the last day of Loneliness, I decided to go to the Magic: The Gathering 2015 Core Set Pre-Release event at Uncle's Games in Bellevue. And who better to experience it with than my bestest buddy Stephen, whom I met some ten years ago via a crazy Internet request for 2am Magic The Gathering at Denny's. Some of the best things in my life have come from doing inadvisable things over the internet, such as saying "Sure I'll meet you at 2am at a Denny's to play a game" or "Sure you should fly to Seattle from Ohio just to meet me" or "Sure I'll take the rest of your pudding if you're not gonna eat it".

Dang but I loved that Pudding...

So anywho, today was the first official "Magic The Gathering" event that I've been to in a VERY long time. They had to look up my DCI Number for me and all were amazed at my simple 5-digit member number (most folks who still play have a 8-to-12-digit number), and by my closest recollection the last time I played in a Pre-Release was the same year they first started doing Foil Cards, whenever that was.

I didn't win anything, but Steve won the whole darned tournament - even after he had done his trademark "Ugh I got NOTHING here... NOTHING! Well I guess I could maybe slap these card together and at least I'll have fun..." schtick. The man is just AMAZING at this game - he sees combos, potential combos, ratios, curves... EVERYTHING all at once! I was proud to see him win :)

Funny thing, though... I think the magic of Magic is just kind of *gone* for me. Instead of gettng tht crazy "OMG MUST OPEN MORE PACKS" feeling, all I could think was "Ugh, when I get home I have to find someplace to put these". Playing was fun, but... I dunno. I can't really see myself getting all hot-n-bothered over getting more cards any more ?

Back when I bought my comic on a weekly basis, packs of Magic were the "Spiegel Gift Card" of my entire Wheel Of Fortune comic shop experience; if my comics for the week came to under $20, I'd make sure I went over that $20 by rounding up in packs of Magic.

(See, back in the day, Wheel Of Fortune had their contestants "shop" for prizes with their winnings on a giant rotating stage. So if they had won $5600, the camera would pan around the stage and the contestant would go "Okay I'll take the Sony 30-Inch Television for $800... the Trip To Mexico for $3000... the His-N-Hers Boliva Watch Set for $700... uhm... the Ceramic Dalmation for $300... and the rest I'll take on a Spiegel Gift Card, Pat!")

Don't get me wrong, I still look forward to playing with the 2.7 GAZILLION cards we already have, and I *really* look forward to Molly getting hooked... I'm just glad that the new packs don't have any power over me any more :)