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FNM and Game Day
May. 26th, 2012 10:12 pmA whole bunch of magic in the last couple of days. ( tl;dr: I did kinda OK, not really well )
FNM: back to vampire treason
May. 19th, 2012 08:56 pmI didn't write up my magic exploits last week, partly because I forgot my pad of paper so I didn't have any record. I finally got around to cutting my pad in half, so it doesn't take up so much table space, and I remembered it, so I have a few notes. ( and here's what they remind me of )
FNM/AVR pseudo release
May. 6th, 2012 08:41 pmI never got around to posting anything about the Magic stuff this weekend. ( magic behind cut )
FNM/AVR Prerelease
Apr. 29th, 2012 10:39 pmA bunch of Magic stuff from this weekend. ( geekery inside )
Proud to be a furry
Apr. 22nd, 2012 09:50 pmIt's been the main topic of discussion in furry fandom lately, but the rest of my readers (all 3 of you) may not have heard about it. In downtown Pittsburgh, there's an independent business called Fernando's Cafe, that got hit hard by the recession and was about to close. It's right next to the Anthrocon venue, and they made a point of welcoming the furries in, and a bunch of people had good memories of eating there. So Uncle Kage decided to see if he could round up the $4000 Fernando needed to stay in business until June. Furries all over the world, including many who'd never been to Anthrocon and Fernando's, chipped in, and raised over $21,000 to help Fernando retire his debts and stay in business. A bunch of folks get to keep their jobs, Anthrocon gets to keep Furnando's, and pretty much everybody wins except for the corporate fast food outlets where people would have to eat instead. But how many special interest groups would bother to try to pass the hat to keep a business that catered to their convention open, much less succeed?
Furries and the kindest and most generous bunch of people I've ever run across, and I'm delighted that they let me hang around with them.
(Go look at Kage's journal if you want more details.)
Furries and the kindest and most generous bunch of people I've ever run across, and I'm delighted that they let me hang around with them.
(Go look at Kage's journal if you want more details.)
I went to Friday Night Magic last night at the Gopher, playing standard with my vampire deck. 18 players, so there were 5 rounds. Two of those matches, I had decent draws and won easily. In the other 3 matches, I had 4 games where I was seriously short of mana and one where I got badly mana flooded. 6 game losses, 5 of which were caused by my own deck rather than my opponent. One game in particular, my 7 card hand had 1 land, OK, go to 6. 6 card hand had 1 land, a Dragonskull Summit that would come in tapped -- so I go to 5. And get no lands. Go to 4. No land again. My 3 card hand had a land and a Stromkirk Noble, but unsurprisingly, I couldn't come back from being 4 cards down.
Won a decent door prize -- 5 random low value rares. Did some trading, got rid of several foils for a couple of decent things. I was up for after draft, but there were only 5 people including me, so it didn't happen.
Won a decent door prize -- 5 random low value rares. Did some trading, got rid of several foils for a couple of decent things. I was up for after draft, but there were only 5 people including me, so it didn't happen.
So a little while ago the Hugo ballot came out, and I was more than a bit surprised to see a furry comic nominated for Best Graphic Story. I hadn't actually read Digger, though I'd seen Ursula Vernon at DucKon last year. I decided to check it out. The first few strips were a little uneven -- she didn't really start with a plan for a long, detailed story -- but it quickly started to come together and become very engaging.
I haven't read any of the other nominees, so I can't say that it's the best, but I think it's definitely Hugo worthy and I would love to see it win. And while it would be great if people would track down and buy the paper book, the whole strip is on the web. If you're going to be voting this year, be sure to give it a read. I laughed, I cried, and while on the one hand it's nice to see a writer give a story a good, solid ending, on the other hand, I'm sad that it is done.
I haven't read any of the other nominees, so I can't say that it's the best, but I think it's definitely Hugo worthy and I would love to see it win. And while it would be great if people would track down and buy the paper book, the whole strip is on the web. If you're going to be voting this year, be sure to give it a read. I laughed, I cried, and while on the one hand it's nice to see a writer give a story a good, solid ending, on the other hand, I'm sad that it is done.
FCN, very briefly
Apr. 17th, 2012 12:54 amMade it back from Furry Connection North in one piece. The trip to the con was trouble free. The con was great fun and if there were any disasters they didn't happen to me. Really impressive tech system at the dances -- amazing laser light show, and speakers that sounded good pumping out rave-level sound. Watched the dance competition, and really enjoyed it. I've never been very into dance; watching this made me feel like I've been missing something. Carried the camera around almost the entire weekend and took around a thousand pictures. We finally got on the road around 3 today, after lingering over lunch. The trip home was not quite so trouble free. First, I caught a rock to the windshield that left a crack, it is small but it will grow, I suspect I'm going to need a new windshield. Then shortly before the Indiana border, suddenly started getting a lot of noise from the left front wheel well. The lining of the wheel well, which was pretty torn up, had come loose and was flapping around. Managed to get it to stop making awful noises, with the help of some duct tape, but I will have to have it looked at to see how it should be repaired in a more lasting, but hopefully not terribly expensive, way.
Death would be less hassle.
Apr. 7th, 2012 04:09 pmI have finally managed to get through the process of filing my taxes. I did them electronically for the first time. It would have been easy except for all the places where I was trying to carefully check that everything would work before I did it. And where I beat my head against bugs in the system. (I simply could not print the electronic version of my 1099 form that I typed in. The print part of the interface, which worked fine for the other forms, did not think that that form was part of the package. I finally decided to screen capture it and print the screen capture, so that I would have what I'd submitted in my printed record. All told, it took me several hours to find my way through it, but much more time over several days forcing myself to sit down and do it. I believe I included everything and did it right. I just hope that the government computers think the same.
ETA: just got email back that IRS bonged the return, because while the instructions specifically state that you don't have to include form 5329 (taxes on early distributions of IRA money) if you're just paying the tax, if you don't include the form you have to write "NO" in the margin on the 1040... which you can't do on an electronic form. So I've resubmitted including the extra schedule that the instructions say I don't need. Hopefully they like it this time.
ETA: just got email back that IRS bonged the return, because while the instructions specifically state that you don't have to include form 5329 (taxes on early distributions of IRA money) if you're just paying the tax, if you don't include the form you have to write "NO" in the margin on the 1040... which you can't do on an electronic form. So I've resubmitted including the extra schedule that the instructions say I don't need. Hopefully they like it this time.
FNM: Well, that sucked
Apr. 6th, 2012 11:29 pmI went to Friday Night Magic at the Gopher again.
I decided to draft, since I have done nothing to improve my bad standard decks. I drafted horribly, had lousy luck, and went 0-3, winning only a single game. It really wasn't any fun. I'd already decided to skip the after draft event, because I'm feeling like I might be getting a cold and the last thing I need is to screw up my sleep schedule by staying up until 3.
I need to find friends who will play some casual magic again, or I will find myself dropping out of this game again.
I decided to draft, since I have done nothing to improve my bad standard decks. I drafted horribly, had lousy luck, and went 0-3, winning only a single game. It really wasn't any fun. I'd already decided to skip the after draft event, because I'm feeling like I might be getting a cold and the last thing I need is to screw up my sleep schedule by staying up until 3.
I need to find friends who will play some casual magic again, or I will find myself dropping out of this game again.
I played Friday Night Magic on Friday, but I haven't had a chance to write it up.
( magic geekery inside )
( magic geekery inside )
Back from Iowa
Mar. 30th, 2012 12:58 amTo celebrate my birthday, I went to Iowa. A couple of days with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tzup and nbowa. Hope you guys get over the cold. Hope I don't come down with it too. Then Wednesday, a house concert with Cheshire Moon opening for s00j, fantastic music, the cheap motel worked out OK. Coming home today, I started feeling really hungry just as I passed the self-styled World's Largest Truck Stop. The truck stop buffet was OK; $8.95 was a bit steep for a pretty basic buffet, but the food was decent truck stop buffet fare. Why is gas so much cheaper in Iowa? Decided on a whim that I would stop by Peoria for a drive by hug with someone who was at the meet at Nbowa's on Monday. Being able to look up an address in an unfamiliar town on my smart phone is awesome.
I also got introduced to Words with Friends (Scrabble with the trademark filed off as an app on the phone) Monday night -- time will tell if I got the cold, but this is probably the more damaging infection :-) if anyone cares to play, let me know (I don't care to post my contact details in a public post). I also downloaded the Boggle clone, but haven't actually played it yet. I made a point of getting back to town during daylight so I could visit the dogs, only to run into rain around Bloomington. I still visited the dogs, though it was damper than it might have been.
tzup and nbowa. Hope you guys get over the cold. Hope I don't come down with it too. Then Wednesday, a house concert with Cheshire Moon opening for s00j, fantastic music, the cheap motel worked out OK. Coming home today, I started feeling really hungry just as I passed the self-styled World's Largest Truck Stop. The truck stop buffet was OK; $8.95 was a bit steep for a pretty basic buffet, but the food was decent truck stop buffet fare. Why is gas so much cheaper in Iowa? Decided on a whim that I would stop by Peoria for a drive by hug with someone who was at the meet at Nbowa's on Monday. Being able to look up an address in an unfamiliar town on my smart phone is awesome.I also got introduced to Words with Friends (Scrabble with the trademark filed off as an app on the phone) Monday night -- time will tell if I got the cold, but this is probably the more damaging infection :-) if anyone cares to play, let me know (I don't care to post my contact details in a public post). I also downloaded the Boggle clone, but haven't actually played it yet. I made a point of getting back to town during daylight so I could visit the dogs, only to run into rain around Bloomington. I still visited the dogs, though it was damper than it might have been.
Happy birdie to me!
Mar. 24th, 2012 05:56 pmMy brown thrasher is back and singing his lovely lively cinnamon song. It's not quite my birthday, but close enough.
Friday Night Magic again last night at the Gopher. I appear to have left my pad at the store, so I won't have many details. ( what I can remember in here, and stuff about my new deck )
Worst part of the evening was that, as we were finishing up, Nick discovered that his standard deck was missing. It's full of expensive stuff (Sword of War and Peace, Geist of St. Traft, Seachrome Coast, pretty much everything you could spend money on in a standard white humans deck splashed with blue). I was giving him a ride home. I felt pretty awkward about it. From my past experience, I think it's pretty likely to turn up, either somewhere in the store or because someone grabbed it by mistake. But it's certainly possible that somebody is less than honest. And in addition for feeling bad for Nick, that has me worrying about the rather expensive stuff I carry around hoping for trades or casual games.
Worst part of the evening was that, as we were finishing up, Nick discovered that his standard deck was missing. It's full of expensive stuff (Sword of War and Peace, Geist of St. Traft, Seachrome Coast, pretty much everything you could spend money on in a standard white humans deck splashed with blue). I was giving him a ride home. I felt pretty awkward about it. From my past experience, I think it's pretty likely to turn up, either somewhere in the store or because someone grabbed it by mistake. But it's certainly possible that somebody is less than honest. And in addition for feeling bad for Nick, that has me worrying about the rather expensive stuff I carry around hoping for trades or casual games.
Spring Adventure
Mar. 13th, 2012 12:51 pmSaturday, I went out to the Out and Back area of Kickapoo, and the frog ponds where the main trail first meets the haul road were simply amazing. So yesterday, I invited Jeremy, who enjoys nature and wildlife with a special interest in the old fashioned stuff, to come out with me and experience it. High points of the afternoon included a very tame muskrat, who sat 30 feet from us happily munching until we got tired of watching him and moved on, tons of salamanders (two sorts, presumably different species, many about 8" long with coral pink spots, a few a hair smaller that were plain muddy gray brown), a few interesting bugs (first butterflies of the season!, a couple of little spiders, several kinds of water bugs), a dead crayfish on the path, and OMG FROGS! I actually saw 3 types of frogs, tiny, medium sized, and large. I'm pretty sure I could identify 4 different songs and I think there were a couple more, but the prevalent songs were overwhelming enough it was hard to pick out the less common notes. I recorded a few seconds of audio with my phone, and the recording is better than I would have expected from a phone, but the file is a .3ga, and whatever that is, nothing on this computer recognizes that extension. If I can figure out how to convert it into a more widely understood format, I will post it and you can hear the Kickapoo frog symphony.
When we got back to the car, we had about an hour left before we needed to drive back to Champaign, so we went up the road to Heron Park. Highlights there were a pair of Mute Swans who were sleeping very close to the boardwalk, a Bald Eagle who flew down, gliding into the stiff wind so that he was almost perfectly motionless for some seconds, a glorious view through the binoculars, and a fairly close look at the pair of Sandhill Cranes. Also some Red-Winged Blackbirds (still not quite as many as I expect to set up territories in this prime habitat, 2 or 3 of the eponymous Great Blue Herons flying over, and many ducks (mostly too far away to see well and I don't know my ducks), some coots, and of course Canada Geese.
This early in the year, it is almost certain that winter will be back, but it was definitely spring yesterday (and today too).
When we got back to the car, we had about an hour left before we needed to drive back to Champaign, so we went up the road to Heron Park. Highlights there were a pair of Mute Swans who were sleeping very close to the boardwalk, a Bald Eagle who flew down, gliding into the stiff wind so that he was almost perfectly motionless for some seconds, a glorious view through the binoculars, and a fairly close look at the pair of Sandhill Cranes. Also some Red-Winged Blackbirds (still not quite as many as I expect to set up territories in this prime habitat, 2 or 3 of the eponymous Great Blue Herons flying over, and many ducks (mostly too far away to see well and I don't know my ducks), some coots, and of course Canada Geese.
This early in the year, it is almost certain that winter will be back, but it was definitely spring yesterday (and today too).
Hugs Bison!
Mar. 9th, 2012 12:01 pmA link to a copy of this was posted on a mailing list. Since the image itself includes the name of the website I was able to find the original. I think it will let me reference the image directly:
Magic weekend
Feb. 27th, 2012 03:06 pmSo Friday night, I was planning on doing something else, but that rug got pulled out from under me -- something I might write about in a locked post. So I went to FNM. Skipped the after draft because I was going to the game day event Saturday. My werewolf deck underperformed my expectation both times. I did a few very minor trades, bought a couple of packs and got fairly lucky. Busy enough that I haven't gotten to writing about it until now. And I just noticed that my trade binder isn't in my satchel where it should be, so I sure hope that I left it at the Gopher and Dave is holding it for me -- pretty likely on both counts but not certain.
( details )
( details )
Targeting your privacy
Feb. 18th, 2012 06:14 pmA mailing list I'm on linked to a story on the power of corporate data mining that anyone who isn't already worried about privacy issues really ought to pay attention to. It seems that through statistical analysis of the stuff we buy, Target can identify when women are pregnant with a pretty high rate of success. And, it seems, identifying pregnant women is very commercially important, because mothers spend a whole lot of money and they will often keep spending it at one particular store once they start. So, having sniffed out that they're probably pregnant, they bombard them with ads for maternity related stuff. In this particular case, they mailed ads to a teenage girl for maternity clothes and such. Her father thought this was highly inappropriate and complained -- only to learn that her daughter was, in fact, pregnant. This behavior seems to exceed many people's creepy threshold. Target recognizes this, they say if people recognize they're being profiled for something like this, it turns them off -- so they have made the program more stealthy: they combine the ads for cribs and maternity clothes with other unrelated ads, so it doesn't look so specific. I find deliberately trying to disguise the privacy invasion even creepier than the invasion itself.
If you are one of the many complacent people out there who think that data mining to target ads is OK, you really should think about what else could be done with that information, because once it's out there, corporations WILL sell it to whoever will pay for it. (Just to be clear, I am not accusing Target specifically of selling this information. But if Target can do it, any big company can, and if any big company can, one will, and pretty soon they all will.) People could do all sorts of things with a list of women who are pregnant. Just think how much fun an unethical information broker could have selling the list to people on both sides of the abortion debate. (Even scarier: correlate the list of women who were pregnant a year ago with the list of those who don't have infants today to form a list of women who got abortions. If I need to explain how that could go badly, I think I'm wasting my time.) But maybe you're not in the demographic likely to become pregnant. It's worth considering that if they can figure out that women are pregnant by analyzing their purchases, they could probably figure out a lot of other things. Like if they're having an affair, or they're gay, or what political party they favor. And people you would rather not know whatever it is you'd rather not know about you can go buy a list with your name on it.
The real point that I want to make in this post is that we face a fundamental societal problem. Given that this computer technology exists, the records are going to be there, and if there is a way to make money from it, the records will be mined and people will be identified. I'm not trying to say computers are evil and we should stop using them; to begin with, I don't believe it, but much more importantly, it isn't going to happen, and trying to say that it should is a stupid waste of energy. What I'm trying to get at is that we need to place fundamental limits, not on what information is stored, but on how it can be used. Personal information -- where we go, how we spend their money, and the like -- fundamentally belongs to us, not to the corporation that happens to collect it. We need to collectively assert that corporations don't have a right to make money off of our information without our explicit permission, and that if they do, the money they make from it is fundamentally stolen and we have a right to collect it.
If you are one of the many complacent people out there who think that data mining to target ads is OK, you really should think about what else could be done with that information, because once it's out there, corporations WILL sell it to whoever will pay for it. (Just to be clear, I am not accusing Target specifically of selling this information. But if Target can do it, any big company can, and if any big company can, one will, and pretty soon they all will.) People could do all sorts of things with a list of women who are pregnant. Just think how much fun an unethical information broker could have selling the list to people on both sides of the abortion debate. (Even scarier: correlate the list of women who were pregnant a year ago with the list of those who don't have infants today to form a list of women who got abortions. If I need to explain how that could go badly, I think I'm wasting my time.) But maybe you're not in the demographic likely to become pregnant. It's worth considering that if they can figure out that women are pregnant by analyzing their purchases, they could probably figure out a lot of other things. Like if they're having an affair, or they're gay, or what political party they favor. And people you would rather not know whatever it is you'd rather not know about you can go buy a list with your name on it.
The real point that I want to make in this post is that we face a fundamental societal problem. Given that this computer technology exists, the records are going to be there, and if there is a way to make money from it, the records will be mined and people will be identified. I'm not trying to say computers are evil and we should stop using them; to begin with, I don't believe it, but much more importantly, it isn't going to happen, and trying to say that it should is a stupid waste of energy. What I'm trying to get at is that we need to place fundamental limits, not on what information is stored, but on how it can be used. Personal information -- where we go, how we spend their money, and the like -- fundamentally belongs to us, not to the corporation that happens to collect it. We need to collectively assert that corporations don't have a right to make money off of our information without our explicit permission, and that if they do, the money they make from it is fundamentally stolen and we have a right to collect it.
