community.wizards.com Post #1 Magical Journeys
First posts are for introductions, right?
Blogging on community.wizards.com means something different than blogging on wordpress, or for some other interest group. We’re here for the games, right? Or perhaps for gaming in general… I guess I should warn you that rambling is ha bit of mine?
Gaming means many things to me. Full disclosure comes here: I’m president of the University of Ottawa Gaming Club, a core-level WPN organizer, and level 1 judge. I literally live and breath gaming – you shouldn’t see my bedroom. Right now, the temperature in Ottawa is a balmy -4 Celsius (-11 with wind-chill!). I’ll be flying out to California on Saturday to soak in the rays and then jump into the mix in one of the coolest events that Wizards has to offer: a Magic the Gathering Grand Prix. This is not my first.
Last August I had the chance to hop on a Greyhound to visit Boston for a Grand Prix there. I left somewhere around 4 am, in time to catch the bus from Montreal. And, fancy that, there were some fellows on the bus who were heading to Boston for the same reason! Bumping into fellow Magic players is always awesome, but sitting on the bus gave me an opportunity to realize the diversity of experience that we come from. Film school? Immunology? Personal Trainer? Or maybe just worried about grade 10 science?
Awesome gamers come in many shapes, forms, and locations. This photo was taken by yours truly at the border crossing.
A funny thing happened on the way to the Grand Prix: I had to cross a border. Now, I have some real respect for the folks working border crossings: they have patience, great bullshit detectors, and have to stand in one spot for most of the day. That being said, it’s kind of hard to explain why I would go all the way to Boston to judge at a Grand Prix. Explaining the trip to the family and roommates was one thing; Border Services was something altogether different. My best advice is be honest, and have a few cards on hand to show the folks.
People didn’t actually believe that Magic the Gathering was this big (or D&D, but I know that GenCon happens, and that I will eventually get there). To prove that I would go all the way to Boston to play cards, I took this photo:
I’m not sure where else I could have taken this one: the taxi was a godsend, that’s for sure.
Atmosphere is everything. Rob Dougherty, Magic Hall of Famer and Professional Tournament Organizer along with Darwin Kastle and Your Move Games did an awesome job hosting the whole show at the metro convention centre, and then kept things rolling through the nights at the Fairmont Coppley just around the corner. Sleep deprived we may have been, but everyone managed to pull through.
Pull through what you may ask? Well, I kind of skipped that part – the running of Magic tournaments can be quite a task. Possibly for another blog post. I’ll leave you with this picture of the product used for the tournament. Now the question for you is this: What’s so special about this picture?
On GBS and Winston Churchill and slippery concrete.
GBS, more commonly known as George Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright and scholar during the later 19th through the early-mid 20th centuries. He won a Nobel Prize for Literature, and was a renowned advocate for the Fabian Society – a socialist group within Britain that favour peaceful talks over revolution.
Winston Churchill was born a bit after GBS, and became Prime Minister of Britain. He is one of only two people who lived to become Honorary Citizens of the United States. He won a Nobel Prize for Literature, and was a renowned orator, and anti-socialist.
You thought I was going to say more? I just read the wikipedia pages on these two fellows, and I must say – I am tired. I have slept enough for a normal weeks worth of activities, but manage to have lost half of my lung capacity – the tidal volume is not what it once was. Thankfully, it’s cigarettes that do this, and not my vice, being Scotch. A vice that I often question, but often enjoy because of the questioning. It remains one of the few things in the world that make me both hungry and nauseous.
Nausea (I’m on a bit of a stream of consciousness thing here, forgive me) was apparently a book by Jean-Paul Sarte. And a feeling you feel when you want to let your stomach meet the rest of the room around you. Perhaps the floor, or the toilet. Apparently, in the book, Mr. Sartre created what is arguably the first manifesto of existentialism – a word I first heard used by Chad Yaccobucci back at the beginning of high school to describe his religious beliefs. Now, I recall at that time assuming he believed in the existence of things, nothing more.
Let me get some biases out: I am Roman Catholic, born and bred. Catholic kindergarten, elementary, and high-school. My university happens to be a former pontifical institute. I have not, however, gone to church in a while (I guess I am sinning? – being RC means inheriting guilt, as far as I understand it). Nonetheless, there is a feeling of nostalgia that warms over me whenever I think about the Church.
Back to Sartre. Something he wrote about hell being other people. And he turned down a Nobel Prize. Something Mr. President ought to have thought about doing over the past few days.
I will not refer to him by name, as I do not need this blog attracting undue attention. Suffice to say that his acceptance speech can be surmised like this: Other really neat pacificists have won this award. I am not a pacificist. In fact, my country is killing people in at least two other sovereignties right now! And we shall continue to do so until there is peace. Not that you needed the summary, you wise-cracking well-informed reader!
No, well-informed reader, you do not need a summary. If you have read this far, you are most likely a family member or close friend. Regardless, I appreciate the attention you have of my ramblings. I, unfortunately, must conclude so that I may sleep. But before I do, I read a very interesting interview between GBS and an imam from what I guess was the turn of the 19th century. He had two questions, which are the same as mine, and were answered in much the way I would expect – Islam is not a violent religion, but men are. The Quar’an is perfectly replicated, and there was a process.
Slippery concrete.
Iced over walkways tonight.
I just fell down. Shit.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/12/10/obama-nobel-peace-text-transcript-speech.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bernard_Shaw
