It's the Magic: Standardized

New Hotness

The guy I'm currently seeing doesn't know much about Magic, but did express an interest in playing. So last week, before driving up to Austin to see him, I made a pair of well-matched beginner decks. I could have gone for starter decks, but opted for something more interactive.

Fight on Delivery - With plenty of massive, vanilla creatures and a fistful of X-cost removal spells in the form of Fireball, Savage Twister, and Windstorm, it manages to hit hard and leave a mark while still not doing anything more complicated than Borborygmos' triggered ability.

And a few combat tricks.

Life and After - Smaller, creatures, mostly humans and spirits wield basic equipment and swing in versus locked down defenders. It's more technical than its opponent, with triggered abilities and counterspells, and in a testament to the difficulty of balancing decks like these, it's managed to lose a balance of the games.

This guy hasn't seen a battlefield since before it was called a battlefield.

But overall, they worked. He picked up the game rather quickly and was eager to play more. So, if I can play Magic on dates, that makes them the best decks ever.

Exit Past Through Doors on Right

There’s an old zen story[1] [2], A man asks a zen master what the key to happiness is. The master says, “Grandfather dies, father dies, son dies.” The man expresses his dissatisfaction with this answer and the master replies, “This is happiness, for each must happen, but any other order is tragedy.”

By that standard, 2011 was not a happy year. I started writing this to mention the best things of 2011, both within that my proximate social sphere and the world at large, but as I struggled with it, I came to the realization that couldn't reconcile everything.

Due South #1

I've been wanting to do this review for a while. Due South is a quirky, hour-long comedy drama action amazing show of awesome about a Chicago detective (Ray Vecchio) and a Canadian mountie (Benton Fraser) who first came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of his father and--for reasons that don’t need exploring at this juncture--remained, attached as a liaison with the Canadian consulate. It was a show I watched with my dad back in the nineties, and it was just so damned good it got canceled three times slower than Firefly.

The comic is something I’d been quietly waiting for before it came out and something I enjoyed privately afterwards. I have a lot of comics I don’t really gush about because I know most of the people around me wouldn’t care. Yes, Batwoman: Elegy might be artistically notable and a really good character study, but the actual story is weak and I only care about the character for certain personal reasons. Yes, Black Hole is great, but I never really find myself talking to a friend and thinking, “Man, this guy would probably love to read a black and white comic book about teenagers in the seventies with a creepy, mutative STD.” Due South is certainly one of those comics. It’s something I can gush about, but don’t really know who to gush about it to.

Thankfully, The Internet is here.

Field Manual Kris: The Talk Circuit

Interior, Oval Office. President Barak Obama sits at the president's desk with full suit and tie. One of the classic white couches has been moved to The President's left, facing outward.

Pictured: George W. Bush trying his hand at theater in a production of "Return to Oz."

PBO: "Welcome back to the White House everyone, today we have a very special guest. Well...Joe, is he important?"

*Cut to Joe Biden behind a set of drums, his jacket draped over the back of his chair and sleeves rolled up. He smiles and laughs with an 'I don't know' gesture.*

PBO: "Well, he is a voter. Everyone, welcome Kris."

There is no applause.

Kris: *Sits on the middle of the couch.* "This is...really uncomfortable."

PBO: "C'mon. It's a great couch. Hilary was just sitting there this afternoon."

Kris: "...less...comfortable."

Sunday Morning Soapbox-Rocking the Cradle

Tunisia
On December seventeenth, Mohamed Bouazizi attempted to sell vegetables from his cart in Sidi Bouzid. When he could not afford to bribe officials, he was beaten and his goods and equipment were confiscated. His attempt to take his case to the local governor was rebuffed and he was left in the street with no money, no goods, and no income to provide for his family. In protest of the abuse and apathy of his government, he lit himself on fire. Within a week, other protests had started. When state police fired on protesters, more dissent sprung up in other areas. Ten days after Mohamed Bouazizi's hospitalization, protesters were in the capitol. He lived until the fifth of January, nine days shy of President Ben Ali's flight to Saudi Arabia (The European Union has since frozen his assets).

For 23 years Ali had been ruling Tunisia, taking land from citizens and redistributing it to his allies and family. He had used the media and police to silence dissent, amended the constitution to allow him to run for president twice, and won obviously fraudulent elections with 99.9% of the vote. While the interim government still contains many members of his party (his own Prime Minister now heads the government), it's not expected that those members will remain in the government after free elections (date still to be announced). The uprising was quick, long in coming, and partially organized over the internet. Some also speculate that leaked US State Department cables released by Wikileaks exposing the corruption of the Tunisian leadership may also have played a part, sadly reducing my personal ability to vilify Julian Assange at will.