Magic: The Gathering and Geocaching: The Gathering

I know it has been a bit since I've updated. I've actually been quite active in my interests... just about everything too. Photography, gaming, music, and Magic: The Gathering stuff. As I said before, everyone around here has gotten into it along with me, and we've built ourselves quite the collection. We all really love building decks around specific strategies, and then countering everyone else's strategy with a whole new deck. I'm seriously considering joining some tournies soon, too. Well, maybe not online. Something turns me off about paying a lot for online cards. I mean... maybe it shouldn't. I use them just as much if not more.

But anyway, today Lance gave me a call as soon as I woke up and told me his car battery was dead, so I grabbed some cables and drove to where he was... which was just down the road, actually, from where he lives. We ended up spending the next 3 hours hanging out and he showed me Geocaching, which could be a fairly big and fun part of our lives in the near future. It's very simple, and very fun. You look up the coordinates of places near you where people have hidden small items and a logbook or paper that lets you write down that you found it, and what date. You can even leave small prizes or items where you find something for the delight of the next person. Seeing that we kind of lived in a podunk sort of place, you wouldn't think a lot of people would be interested in that sort of thing (you know, with that newfangled innernette), but apparently, when they did a search for our area it listed literally hundreds. You should go check it out, seriously at http://www.geocaching.com . It's a hella-awsome way to get out and about, get a little sun and excercise, and you get the reward of finding something out there somewhere... you really can't explain why it's so fun until you do it. There's something about standing in an abandoned alleyway or walking through some public woods and finding something that is shared among an almost secret society of people.

It was actually pretty cool when we found this one today, because we noticed the last date that someone had found it was today, and as soon as we noticed it we heard a car honk on the highway across the way and the guy was waving at us. It was a delightful moment.

Welp, back to housecleaning. I'll give more later.

Stimulating the Economy

Well, it's been a zany past couple of weeks. But, for the most part, it has been really fun and enjoyable.

Staci and I got the biggest tax refund we've ever gotten, due in no small part to the fact that we filed together and married for the first time, and that I paid for college last year - so that's also a write-off. So, today was spent spending. "Stimulating the economy" as it were. We bought lots of stuff, and I've still got around 600 or so left. I got me a 1TB external for my lappy.

My Magic: The Gathering craze continues a bit, but it now seems like it's just going to be one more of my hobbies. This time, though, I'm not going to quit. I think I'll just keep on the lookout for cards, and play online. Online play is pretty fun, and the recent update made the system seem more stable. It was a bit laggy and unpleasant for a while. And, as far as Magic goes, I really need to start looking at some good deck builds. Finding out which cards are worthwhile and so on.

In addition to my re-interest in MTG, almost all of my friends jumped on the bandwagon full-force, right along with me. This was a pleasant surprise for me, seeing as I thought it would be more along the lines of a friendly game against Justin or Staci here and there. And maybe some random people at A-Kon. Actually, the latter was my original plan. And now, everyone, including Steve and Lance, are card-buying machines, with Steve going in together with me to buy another lot off of ebay (this time, two of the 500 card lots). Thing is, I don't know if Steve holds any interest in playing. I think he still has yet to play a game, which seems a little strange to me. But he seems targeted more at eyeing abilities and working out what would be horrible combos. The one deck he built sure seems to work very well against what I've thrown it at so far.

I'm still torn as to what to purchase with the remainder of my refund. I'm fairly sure I want a new camera, since I got a new hard drive and would like to document the passage of time on digital photography like the past few years. Used to be, not a month would pass without another album from Adam on Facebook or his current blog. I might go for the gold again. Speaking of cameras, I saw an 2GB SD card at Sams for 5 bucks. Media's getting cheap, my friends.

Staci's getting into gardening. Awesome. I really would like our living area to be spruced up. She's going to deck out the deck with plants, and grow an herb garden out front. I'm thinking of fencing off the front yard in some way or another at some point. Maybe widening the parking space over to about where our sidewalk/walkway begins, to give it just enough room to fit cars side-by-side. This would make it to where we would have at least a small front yard and Staci could put some pretty color to those two front small-flower-garden-type areas.

I guess that's it for now. It's 4am.

MTG and Staci's B-Day

Well, you'll notice that my updates have slowed down considerably since this month began. Well, I don't plan on making a habit of it, but it was only because I've been knee-deep in re-entering the world of MTG. I've ordered a set of cards from a cheap retailer on ebay. Staci has gone with me to Hawghead comics and was with me when I bought my first few tourny packs. I went home, made some decks, trying to balance them out pretty well. I did get an ultra rare, which is cool. I've played games against Staci and Justin so far, and a few on the online version of the game. It's cool that some of the traders on there just give away free cards every month. I made my first deck from it and made my first friend online while using that deck.

So yeah, like I said, knee-deep in yet another nerdy endeavor. Well, this is more like a trip down memory lane, in addition to picking up something again that used to bring us all together. Man, it has been long. It does feel different playing. Because I'm so different. And there are a lot of new rules involved. Well, not really rules, just so many new abilities. But it has all been really fun. I'm glad I decided to play again. I might even play with some people at Akon this year. Magic online works pretty well, too. Although it definetely helps if you know the game irl beforehand. There are a lot of options. But playing it online will help your real life gaming as well, as it follows the rules and phases of gameplay staunchly.

Well, enough about Magic, I suppose. We've also managed to get Staci her b-day present, which was a new camera :). It's a cool little blue Fujifilm. It'd be the one I would get. Maybe I will, when I get my huge income tax return this year. I kid, but I hope it is huge. I got plans. Space plans.

Justin started a Captain Falcon group on Facebook and a few people went crazy on it.

The house has been a horrendous mess, since I've been doing nothing but working the past 3 or 4 days (I don't bother trying to remember how long it has really been) and have been completely stiff and more interested in MTG when I get home.

Dad's been in CA. Not sure when he's coming back, or if he already has. I need to get his number in my new phone.

The last few days have been warm. I miss the cold already.

Growing More Nerdy Every Day

Nothing too special today. Had a long day at work. 1-close. Didn't do much there, as usual. Well, I did what my job is. Only today it felt like I was teaching entire lessons about computers and televisions to people. It's actually pretty amazing how much people do not know about these things. It's even more amazing when people are adamant about something being true, when it is completely false. I didn't even want to bring up, to this one man, how Monster cables were ridiculously overpriced - and for no good reason. He just knew that he was right already. He knew that Monster cables are the best ones because they have "speed ratings". Yeah, okay. Doesn't an HDMI cable have to be a certain speed to even be called an HDMI cable? Isn't the "speed" processed within the units you are connecting? Don't tell this man that.

Or don't tell this other lady, looking at laptops, that 2 gigs of ram for a laptop that she will only be using for school and internet is more than enough. But she just had to have at least 4 gigs. I didn't stick around for long. She gave me the "wife of Tom Peters" vibe. You know, that terrifying woman on Tom Goes to the Mayor. Oh well...

We're closing in on a new season of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, and I'm excited. I can't wait to experience some new underlying quirks, meanings, and subtleties. Boing Boing once called them 'Connoisseurs of Fine Funny'. I like that, and I think its fitting.

We had spaghetti (with meat!) tonight. Staci was worried that she burnt the meat, but it turned out delicious.

We made a new friend who lives in CA on Animal Crossing tonight. I'm going to get his friend code tomorrow.

Oh man, I'm excited. I purchased a 'lot' of M:TG cards tonight on ebay. I bought a Lot containing 500 cards, no fillers (lands), rares and uncommons included, and no more than 4 repeaters (if any, it says). Sounds like a pretty good deal. You can only have 4 of any certain kind of card in your deck anyway. And I also bought a Lot of 200 basic land cards, so that I can actually build decks when I get them. These were all extremely inexpensive. Considering theme decks and stuff only have 40-60 cards and cost 10 bucks. And I spent 15 for 500 cards. I can't tell you how nerdily excited I am. Just to touch them. Smell them. Remember them. I hope I get a lot of my old favorites, but I don't really know if I will or not. I'm going to be such a n00b player for so long. I just love to play. I'm hoping to have a decent collection together and maybe understand a few things better before we go to Akon this year. I want to see if I can join in on some of that. Maybe even enter a tournament and get slammed.

I can't wait.

Things are looking up. Or more like... things are starting to look very fun.

Magic: A Return, Perhaps

I'm thinking about playing Magic: The Gathering again. Every time I think about it I get a little more excited. I almost can't wait to get some fresh cards in my hand and smell that new card smell once again. I think I'm ready. I've even been watching some of the noob videos to get a brush-up. I kind of forgot some of the smaller details, but it was helpful to watch those.

I might try finding some other noobs/returning players to play on Apprentice. Should be fun. I hope I can get Staci interested in playing with me. That would be really fun.