Hockey cards!

Well, just when I was starting to be good with my money.

My friend who's been collecting for years knows I like to collect stuff, that I like hockey, and that I haven't been spanding a lot of money lately.

He's been pushing for me to start collecting with him.

I might just start, too. I always wanted to get back into that hobby, looking for the signature card or for my favourite player.

But it's so expensive!

I'm used to the Magic the Gathering ratio... 15 cards for 5 big bucks, with 2 rares and 2 uncommon FOR SURE.
That's 1:15 chances for an ulra-rate, 1:15 for a gold (or a holographic), 2:15 chance for a silver.

I want to compare value, or my chances, before i start. If I'm going to waste money on a new hobby, I want it to be worth it!

I look at the hockey card insert ratios for exemple, to help me decide.
Magic the Gathering box: 36 booster packs of 15 cards, so 540 cards per box.
Out of these, you'll have 36 ultra-rare FOR SURE and 36 rare FOR SURE.
72 of my 540 cards will be worth it.
But it's also a different thing we're looking at. Those rare cards were usually also better to play with. I'm not going to play with the hockey cards, they'll be on display.
I don't even know how to calculate my chances...
Let's say i divide 1 by 15, that's ,06.
And then what?
Let's keep that number for now, I have no clue where I'm going with this.

Well actually let's just put it at 1:7.5

If I look at the Upper Deck series 2, they have a shitload of different crap, ranging from 1:8 to 1:30... Signatures, rare rookies, a piece of a shirt attached to the card... sounds like fun.

I have absolutely no clue where I was going with this, but I might just start buying hockey cards again! Yay!

Interests

Funny how this blog always reflects my current interests.

If you scroll down you'll see video games, comics, youtube videos, D&D...

One thing i haven't talked about a lot is my love for board games.

I play them a lot, and i have many friends that enjoy them too.

Recently my good friend Marc got Agricola for x-mas. I won't go into the details of the game but i must say it's one the funnest board games i've been given to play. Even on the first play, everybody could get a chance to be competitive.

I'm currently in the business of designing board games.
I've been working on a card game for about a year now, all i have left to do is print cards and playtest it.
I've also been working on 3 different board games with 3 different people, most are stuck are the same stage, the one where i have to stop just throwing ideas around or doodling and start... ya know... building stuff.

Hopefully with school ending soon i'll have a burst of motivation and produce 1 game before 2011, at which point, you, my dear lonely reader, will be the first to know.

Besides me. I will be the first to know.

NOthing

Spring's here and I can smell it.
Or is it all the dog poop uncovering?

Used to be that we'd have ice from November to the end of March.
I started playing hockey too late. At 25. During global warming.

So my season lasted from the beginning of January to the end of February. I was getting good at ice skating too, so i'm sad that i won't be able to practice anymore. I could brake on both sides real hard, and I can make sharp turns on my comfortable side, even cross-skate.

Maybe i'll buy some rollerskates, and prance around.

Cause that's what you do when you have roller skates. You prance. On asphalt. With cars rapidly going by, and old ladies in your way. And dogs barking at you.

But you get to look really cool and move effortlessly, probably while wearing awesome sunglasses.

You really need the sunglasses though. Because you can't let them know. You can't.
They can't see.
They can't see the fear.

The streets of montreal are as defaced as the surface of the moon, or as the craterous face of a pulpous teenager. One moment of distraction, and you're sent flying headfirst into cheese-gratter pavement.

The face-raper.

I can already see it. Just like those fire adds with that scarred woman. My face. No lips, no nose anymore. One eye is missing, a dark gap is taking its place.

My skull is deformed. One part of it is perfectly flat, the place where the initial impact occured.

And besides, I used to skateboard. My mind has been fully influenced to think that roller skates are gay.

Video Games Update!

Hey!
Haven't been here for a while.

So since the last update, I bought Modern Warfare 2, Dragon Age, MAG, Greed Corp...

Modern Warfare: Bandwagon extravaganza!
I played Modern Warfare 1 a lot on the internet, so i knew i was gonna be sick of the 2nd one really fast. I still bought it, for 30$ from a guy at work because it is in french.
The missions are really cool, the multiplayer is horrendously fast, arcady, and addictive, but my favorite mode is Spec Ops. Basicaly you have a series of short missions that you can finish within a time limit, or within a set difficulty to get different scores, and you can do them with friends.
The multiplayer i found incredibly frustrating... Whenever i'd get killed it seemed like i was just at the wrong place at the wrong time... Someone turning the corner to find me crouching around, and they happily shoot me in the back for an easy kill...

Dragon Age Origins: More of the same!
I played KOTOR 1 & 2 a lot, so i thought i would really enjoy this game. Unfortunately, it did not have the same lasting appeal as the Jedi franchise. I love that kind of game, but i did not even finish the story mode. The reason? Boring fights. I really like the story and the system and the graphics, but the battles just didn't cut it for me... Normal difficulty was too easy, so i upgraded to Hard... which was... too hard... my whole party would die save one character, fighting just normal critters, and when i would reach the boss i wouldn't have any potions left, so i'd have to fight him on easy.

MAG: Socom meets BF2!
I played the Battlefield series a lot, so i knew i would love this game. You don't die of 1 shot, you can't run very fast, it's not too arcady.
The focus of this game is on teamwork and strategy, not to just kill and maim as fast as you can.
For exemple, it's really worth it to put down your gun and start reviving your allies when you're attacking or defending a base... it makes for a violent neverending onslaught.
If your crew doesn't work together though, and 5 guys just decide to leave and help another squad, you really suffer from it...
My favourite game lately!

Greed Corp: pretty but with no personality.
I play a lot of board games so i thought i would enjoy this game a lot.
Suffice to say, it's a very, very basic game, with 1 type of unit, 3 types of buildings, and 1 type of vehicle... and 1 way to win. The missions are okay, the different levels let you think you'll be able to adopt a different strategy than what you usually do, but really you can't...
The multiplayer missions are won by the player that doesn't do any mistakes all game.
Not worth 10$ IMO.

Back to school

Here's a dude working out and flipping off Muscle Cat.

Here's a Draconian being grumpy in the morning. It's either the ones taking over the world as we speak, or the Dragonlance ones. You decide.

Well, at 25, after a 4-year break, i decided to go back to school. This means that i started doodling again, and that i am exposed to a whole new class of douchebags (no pun intended. Fuck you it was totally awesome.)

I guess school fees give you the right to walk and talk like a bitch when you're a girl, and to think you're an awesome and super-intelligent dude when you're a man. When you're a man you also get to walk around with a smirk, dreaming of being a high-impact warzone journalist.

One dude wears a tophat.

This other girl makes me think of my cat.

And this one other guy always argues respectfully with a 56-year old man in school, about really unimportant stuff.

When you have a blog you can also say oh yeah i have a blog, i have many interesting interests and need to be creative in my life. I guess i'm an artists. The internet is my canvas and the words, my paint.

Say that to chicks they are bound to let you smell their hair!

Stupid fucking cyclists

Why do cyclists cut me off when the light is green for me, and when i hit on the brakes to SAVE THEIR LIFE they flip me off? In a collison between me and him, i would be the winner, what with being incased in a tonne of METAL while this DICK only wears spandex or a hoodie of a indy band. I think mythbusters should do a slow-motion episode of it. With explosions. And that dude with the stach driving the WIN car

PS3 Games

As of my last post in July, i was the proud owner of a PS3, only owning Skate 2.

I am, since then, fucking sick of that game. However i purchased Resistance, call of Duty 4 (1), Fallout 3, NHL 10, inFamous, Batman, Crystal Defenders, Burn Zombie Burn, Critter Crunch, and 3 on 3 NHL Hockey.

Resistance is shit and Call of Duty was stupid since i already played the crap out of it on PC, but i bought them with Fallout 3, used, for 80$. Figured it was a good deal since Fallout was still being sold at 69.99$ at that time.
Fallout 3 was more of an emotional purchase for me as i am a huge fan of the first 2, and also of Morrowing and Oblivion. I spent 40 hours to finisht it but haven't been back. My friend however is fucking addicted and has finished the game on 2 occasions and has about 80% of the trophies. There's a lot to do on that game and if you're looking for a dolar/lenght of game ratio, this is it. There's also not 1, 2, but 5 expantion packs.

inFamous, same story. Bought it used for 40$ like 2 weeks after the game came out, played maybe 1/3 of the game and got bored. Haven't been back since.

NHL 10 is really sick, really fun, and really frustrating. I mean, i'm doing one-timers, dekes, passing around, using the board, puck doesn't go in. This douchebag comes next to my goalie, passes it to him. The PC-controlled goalie goes ''Aaaaaah SHIT i didn't train for THIS'' and just taps the puck with his stick. The opponent will just slapshot the puck and it'll go in, without fail.

it seems that the game rewards ugly-ass goals.

But it's addictive. So addictive.

Batman so far is AMAZING. Bought it used for 40$ again. There's so much to say about this game. I'll make it simple. Did you like Splinter Cell? Did you like the fighting in Assassin's Creed?
Well, the game is like Splinter Cell, the fighting engine is like in Assassin's Creed, only you are BATMAN.
Makes everything at least 6 times cooler.
Don't ask me the complex mathematical sequence i used to get the 6x factor, your brain's not overly active enough to get it.

As for the downloaded games, Burn Zombie Burn is the biggest waste. Tons of games like that are offered for free on the internet, and you don't even get trophies.

Crystal Defender, same shit, but at least you get trophies. Only buy it at 2 am when you're not working the next day and your girlfriend is and you're bored with the games you own (that's what i did).

NHL 3 on 3 is really fun for a gamer night party game, and only 5$!

Critter Crunch is another game type that can easily be found for free on the internet, but it's only 8$, there's a lot to do, cool trophies, the art is really cool, it's been recommended by pennyarcade.com AND my girlfriend played it like 20 minutes, so it was definetly worth it.

Overall i love the PS3, but sometimes it crashes when i'm trying to leave an online game. Poo.

Super-Fast Stairs People

i hate people who are really good at going down the subway stairs fast. Because they have such an attitude about it. They have that little smirk as they go really fast past me and i can't keep up.

Skate 2 Review

Hello folks and desperate review seekers (for indeed, you must be VERY desperate to end up here, in the most isolated corner of the internet).

Well, i must say, after being disenchented with gaming for the past few years, i've decided, after a jealousy-induced shopping spree, to become the proud owner of a PS3.

And boy, have i been missing out!

The whole ordeal started when i stumbled upon what i first mistook for skateboard videos.
I soon realised - to my surprise - that these were in fact short clips made using the Skate 2 videogame, made with the downloadable filmer-pack.

ARG!

I HAD TO GET IT!

You see, i've skateboarder from 1995 to 2005. I was never really good, but it's the only physical activity that i would do during 3 seasons a year, enjoying snowboard during our Québec winters.
And with this sport of course came the many Tony Hawk Pro Skater games.

I would sit with a fellow skateboarder friend, in his parent's basement with the lights off, all night long riding together in free skate mode. We'd find a spot, tear it up as realisticly as we could, and then move on. We would comment our landing, our smooth 180s, if a double-kickflip down 20 stairs 'looked' fake.

If you too were one of these persons, then my friend, you NEED Skate 2.


I purchased the game the night before a day off from slavery where my girlfriend woul also have to work, just to make sure i could fully appreciate the game. I plugged the time-consuming demon in the wall and TV, eroticly inserted the game in the console, opened a cold beer, turned off the lights, and skated away.

In 2 days, i cumulated 15 hours of gameplay, to my pets' frustrations.

First impression: smooth, pretty, realistic, entertaining.

A deeper look however reveals some frustrating habits.
First, there's the new ''meathall'' feature. Your biggest bails get you money. You can can get scores on especially violent bails. You can even see wich bones you fractured. This is entertaining at first.

Then, you start skating. The game is realistic, so you can't pop everything all the time efortlessly like THPS. This is okay. But bailing from failing to ollie on a sidewalk and having to watch you fall like a mongo-newb in slowmotion is incredibly frustrating after 4 hours of gameplay.

The controls are pretty cool. The left analog stick controls the movements and direction of your skater, and the right analog stick controls your feet. Think NHL 09, with the right control stick instead controling your hockey stick.

By the way, the in-game tutorial helps a lot. I couldn't figure out how to do tailslides and bluntslides, my 2 favourite, until i checked the video and looked at the precise gesture you have to make.

For exemple, an ollie will have you bring the stick down, and then up quickly. To make a kickflip, if you ride regular, would have the same movement but instead of directly up, you move the stick slightly to the left. Opposite when you ride switch, and from up to down when you ride Nollie or Fakie. It's so precise in fact that it can prove frustrating when you are making a video and need a specific flip trick in your sequence and keep getting the wrong one.

But, something makes it easier. Waypoints. I think that's what it's called hehe. Basically you can stop riding at any place in the world, place a little invisible waypoint with L1 and down arrow, and skate on. If you need to return to that specific point, you press L1 and up arrow, and are returned there instantly. You can only place one though.

I was making a little sequence, doing a shuv-it down a flight of stairs, then poping a smooth bs 180 kickflip on a curved bridge, and finishing with a bs boardslide down a rail. For some reason, i kept doing varial kickflip instead of the real kickflip. I would not even land that i would be returning to the waypoint to try again.

All and all, a very addictive game for skateboarders. I do not recommend it for people that don't give 2 damns about the extreme sport however, as the game can be very frustrating and not very spectacular when you compare it to THPS. No 60-foot drops doing a Madonna just to land on an overcrook, jumping from a ledge with a Laser flip onto a rail doing a feeble.

But for the retired skateboarding, this is heaven.

My cat's a whore

Every morning i get up, and both my cats are at my feet.

They are purring, they are meowing, they are rubbing slowly and intently against my bare legs.
Rocjy'll take nips at my ankles, and Willow will get up on her rear legs, reach for my hands and try to lick my fingers.

And then i feed them mushy food, and all is over. They leave me alone. I start the coffee machine, take a shower (yeah right), eat and/or head to work.

But then i get home, and she's there...

Letting go of a fat, affectionate, intentionate purr.
Half-squinted eyes...
She throws herself on her back, and starts to stretch all four.
Then she might arch her head and try to take a glimpse at me,
or will lick her neck fur-coat, desperate for affection.

And frankly, it's disgusting.

I feel like she's a dirty whore, trying to get all the attention she can get.

You have to understand that we found these cats in the country.
They were stay-away kittens rummaging the farm land in search for sustenance when we found 'em, kit'nap 'em and proceeded to save them from their fleece curse.

So she owes me and my girlfriend her life. She might be trying to express gratitude for the gesture, i don't know.

I just can't communicate with her.

Madman Comics!

Hello everyone!

So, as you can see from my father's previous blog, we've both been busy to my brother's needs.
Poor little bugger got in a car accident 2 days after his 20th birthday, and apparently if he had been in anything else than the car he was in (Land Rover i think), he could have been cut in half.

So, good job Land Rover!

However, since my bro is stuck in the hospital, I've finally been able to make him read comics.
He's never been interested in them at all, but he really liked the show Heroes.

My first pick for him was Astonishing X-Men, by Joss Whedon. I just finished it, and it was great. I thought... everybody likes X-men, here's a critically acclaimed book, and on top of that, it was written by someone that wrote tv shows.
He thought it was stupid at first, but kept reading, and really liked it at the end. He asked for Volume 2, wich i don't own yet.


I recently just started buying online again, wich i promised myself i would never do again, seeing how i maxed out my credit card buying Elfic Dice and Super-Hero statues...

But then, I discovered Amazon. How can the books be so cheap!

I've since started a crusade, ordering dozens of TPBs and HCs a month, from all companies.

And i discovered this:



Madman Comics.

The dude's from Snapcity, fights with yoyos, slingshots and disc-guns.

He's portrayed in vivid colors, drawn amazingly, and has the innocence of San Goku.

You have to understand... Madman is timeless. I could have been reading this 10 years ago, or i could have discovered this 10 years from now, and I'd still have a crush on him.

There is a certain feelings that settles on my shoulders when I'm reading the comics. Like an ancient Owl telepathicly inducing my brains will all of my most cherised childhood memories that i thought lost forever.
There's a certain honesty, style, innocence permeating from the pages and the vibrant colors that anyone with an open mind can enjoy.

I suggest you get Volume 1, give it a try. I'll never regret it!

Life and evrything

Last week my son (Étienne's brother) had a car accident and even though he had serious injuries it could have been much much worse.

I know it's a cliché but such occasions only reinforce the importance of what is important in life.

It's simple: love your friends, love your family and show them you do.

The uncertainty of DnD

There's something I really like about DnD, that keeps me coming back for more, both as a DM and a player.

By the title, you have probably guessed... uncertainty. Another important factor would be improvisation.

DnD is the root to all video games, but something that video games will never be able to emulate. The DM, instead of the computer, makes all the difference. Players remain players in both universes.

What i mean is that, a player of video games has a limited options and actions available to him, that might or might not work in his environment, cemented in codes. The fact that a DM, human, is running the game instead of a program, allows for much rule-bending. For exemple:

In one of my games, in our earlier adventures, one of my friend was playing with a Ranger that had 2 light crossbows. Okay, now we know, you can't do that. At the time we didn't know, and it was just so cool. Anyways.

At one point, they are climbing a cliff while running away from a patrol of Lizardmen. The Barbarian climbs quickly, tosses a rope down to the Ranger, who in turn tied it up around his waist. The idea was that the Barbarian would lift the Ranger up while the Ranger covers their back with his crossbows.
Already, this is pretty cool.
Then, eagles who were nesting in the cliffs started to attack the party. At one point the Barbarian dropped the rope. Now this is where D&D really starts to differ from PC games.

The Rogue asks me if he can drop a crossbow to try and get a holding on the cliff with his free hand. Cool idea, so i made him roll a reflex check. Passed.
The rogue then asks me if he can try and catch the falling crossbow with his feet! Even cooler!
DO you get it? DO YOU GET IT?

You can actually convince the DM to change a few factors of the game. And if the DM is willing, well it makes the game even more interesting. Linear adventures are possible in D&D, but it's everything between point A and point B that make it the game that it is.

Now if you excuse me, i have a fighter-based Prestige Class to design. I'll post this here when i do it.

K tnx bye.

Deadpool in Wolverine Origins

Weapon Eleven is NOT Deadpool in Wolverine Origins. They clearly state that the ''Deadpool'' is a project's name, a sort of gene pools to gather all sort of mutant powers, and that Weapon XI is their master weapon, the final project. If they choose to stay true to comics (but they never do), Deadpool will in fact be a dismissed body, a failure, abandoned in the ''deadpool'' facility. An early try. Wolverine is Weapon X. Why? Because he is the 10th attempt at an ultimate weapon. Sabertooth would be a Weapon # also. Alpha Flight maybe also? Who knows? Department H is up to a lot of things in the cold and desolate Canada of Marvel Comics. So quit telling me Deadpool shoots lasers, has diamond swords coming out of his arms, can teleport, cannot talk (?) and has bad tattoos. Deadpool's a fucking lunatic who shoots guns and cuts bullets YES, and in the comics CAN teleport but with the help of a device. End of similarities. And let's hope they disfigure him in his stand-alone movie.

Now that i think of it, i bet they made sure Weapon XI couldn't talk to specify that it can't POSSIBLY be Deadpool. He's known as the ''Merc with a mouth' for a reason.

Nuff said.

GRIDLINKED

Combine a kilometer long dragon made of flesh and circuits and who can travel instantaneously across the universe, intercept any communication between computers and create creatures of flesh for any purpose (and it is a crazy liar);

add a Japanese master who is 400 years old and who has survived Hiroshima;

incorporate a government agent that is so powerful that future historians will argue about his existence;

pour a totally fucked up separatist who wants revenge for the death of his no less fucked up sister;

and why not a few golems and amped up mercenaries.

You have the ingredients of a novel that is interesting and frustrating.

Interesting because the plot is inventive but frustrating because sometimes you wonder what the hell is going on and the end and most deaths (and there are quite a few) are anticlimactic. For example, Mr Crane, a seemingly invicible Golem is destroyed in a figth that takes something like 2 lines.

But Asher's work remains a page turner even if some of the characters survive impossible odds. He has a lot of imagination and his inventions are credible as are most of the protagonists.

A good read

8/10

THis is awesome!

New Star Trek

So i was sitting in the theaters, in front of an Imax screen, my girlfriend next to me.
I'm not a big fan of Star Trek, but just the fact that my girlfriend was watching this was an achievement in itself.

Opening sequence. A space battle over a planet. The camera pans down to show us the chaos raging. My girlfriend leans towards me an whispers: ''That shot is cool!''

I lean back slowly, and whisper back: ''It's cooler in Star Wars III''
I am of course refering to this:


I rest my back on my chair, satisfied. She looks at me with questions marks in her eyes, and i think: ''Thank you, Star Trek. Now she will watch the episodes with me for sure''.

And that's what it felt like the whole movie. Like they tried to make Star Trek feel like Star Wars.

Like my said friend, however: ''Sorry, no lightsabers. You lose. Bye.''

New City of Heroes expension

Hi all, it's been a while.

Let's jump straight to the point.

I tried City of Villains a few years back, loved it but not enough to pay the monthly fees. So after a trial period, i ditched it.

Now, a few years later, it seems that the game is still being played. And they just released a new expansion pack: The mission architect (say this out loud with a very ominous voice).

This apparently lets you (the player) create missions for the game, adding endless content to the game.

It was also said that in the 24 hours following the release of this mission architect, more content was created by users than what had ever been created by the makers of the game since 2004.

First. The makers of the game are pretty proud to announce this, but i think it makes them sound lazy.

Second. How many really, really bad missions created by weird stupid kids were uploaded? I bet this dude made one:




Granted, i would play his.


And last, and certainly not least:

City of Heroes has achieved everyone's dream: in releasing the mission architect pack, they actually succeeded in making people pay a monthly fee, on top of paying for the mission architect pack, to literally do their job for them.

Now folks, this is a pretty spectacular feat. If someone would be willing to pay me to do my telemarketing job for me, i'd be in heaven fornicating in clouds.

Because, you see, you might think that paying a monthly fee will ensure that programmers are working tirelessly to produce more in-game content, missions, items, territories. You know, like WoW. But no! In CoH, they were working on way for you to be able to do this stuff, so they wouldn't have to!

Amazing!

Who's stupid enough to do this? To actually pay a monthly fee to be able to add in-game content regularly, what the monthly fee should be covering in the first place?

Bewildering i tell you.

Off to bed. I'm going camping and woodsballing with 10 buddies for the rest of the weekend. Sure beats going through a mission created by a weird lonely 12-year-old where you probably have to... go in the sewers to... kill demons with bad gramar. I don't know. I don't care.

DARK YOU SAY????

holy macaroni,



I thought that Scar Night was a dark novel, with vampire angels, poisoners and assassins.



That was NOTHING.



Iron Angel the second book of the trilogy takes place mostly in Hell, but an Hell so terrifying with such terrible beasts and gods that it's a wonder I was able to sleep at night.



Imagine a dark red maze at the bottom of a pit. The maze is made of alleys and houses, alleys and houses made of human souls. Alleys and houses that bleed when attacked, feeding demons and machines that run on blood.

Blood flows in canals and kilometer long blind worms made of demons desire nothing but to devour souls. But the worms can see, the demons pass along the worm the thousand eyes of a slain god that was killed by Menoa a thousand years ago. And those are mild compared to the 500 hundred feet high fighting machines



Our poor friend Dill, the clumsy angel of the first book is caught by the bad guys and it does not go well for him or the human race for that matter.






And just when you think that there is a small ray of hope, the end leaves the reader faced with a terrible vision.



Dark, dark, dark, dark. but a great read, a real page turner. Can't wait for the next one which is supposed to be out at the end of summer. Darn!





9/10

Long time no see!

I know, i've been away. To all 3 people a day that visit this page an average of 2 minutes, i'm sorry. I've just been pretty busy.



It's a lie. I've just accumulated so many geeky hobbies recently that it has been impossible to keep up with all of them.



For exemple: My Savage Sword of Conan tpb sits in my bookshelf, half-finished.

I've read only a chapter of the last Dragonlance novel i bought.

I'm 3 games away from entering the playoffs with my NHL 2009 team.

I'm still at stage one of designing my own collectible card game.

The list goes on.



But there's a good reason.



At 25, i started playing D&D, and i love it.



I've been playing Magic for a couple of years now, slowly enticing all my friends to start playing with me, making them spend hundreds of dollars on the cardboard crack.

They all became quickly obsessed, and a weekly game meeting was the norm. Everybody knew the rules, or thought they did.

I speak in the past term, because i retired from the TCG around 6 months ago.



I couldn't take it anymore. I tried. I really did. I sat through what seemed like impossibly long games, made only longer by all the arguing and debating of the rules, fueled by the fact that every single rule in the game can be broken by one card or another.



So here we were, in my friend's new appartment, drinking booze, watching the hockey game and playing magic. I was sitting at the table quietly, sipping on rum n coke, watching the game unfold. To my right, the monster i created: a lawyer, playing magic. To my left, another monster: the sports dude who simply cannot wrap his head around the fact that everybody's different. Both drunk.

And I sit there, as they once again argue about: does a creature tap before or after the attack phase. Can you regenerate a creature you suicided. How can a Counterspell make sense when you use the stack: if the counterspell resolves before the spell, what does it counter?



It's finally my turn. I've been sitting there quietly for 5 minutes. Count 60 seconds in your head. It's pretty long, right? Do it again, 4 more times. My turn. I have a few options available. I could attack either player, i could boost a creature, i could just summon something. After about 6 seconds of mental debate, I chose the later, for no consequences from either sides.

After i put my creature on the table, i announce that my turn is over. The jock turns to me and says with some aggressivity: that's it?

At this point, i knew i was never going to play again. I finished the game not really doing anything great, since i was just testing a new deck, playing against guys that always use the same one. The guys thought it was drunk talk. I haven't played since.



And so i was left with an empty black hole in my life. All the hours that i spent looking at cards online, talking startegy in forums, building, deconstructing, analysing and testing my decks were now empty and scary hours of lifetime that i could use to do anything else. Like, for instance, concentrating on my finances, looking to go back to school, take a walk outside.



So you understand that i had to look for a new geeky obsession to fill my life, and fast!



Now, what is as time-consuming, nerd-associated and geek-points-awarding as Magic: The Gathering? Dungeons and Dragons, without a doubt!



And so my friends, this is why i haven't been posting a lot. Between rules clarification, book reading, character creating, adventure-writing, map-drawing, scenario-contemplating, game night organisation, and geek-recruiting, i don't have that much time left.



I still read comics, play NHL 09, play real hockey - Ice and Ball - spend time with my girlfriend, get drunk with my friends, workout. So, sorry to say, but the blog is kinda left back a little.



Mind you, whenever something grabs my attention, it'll end up here. Or if people actually start asking for more stuff hehe!

G'day