(no subject)

So this won't make any sense to non-Magicers, but... Fun card combos I found at last week's Release: Stuffy Doll + Fatal Attraction. Fatal Attraction + Paradox Haze. Stuffy Doll + Fatal Attraction + Paradox Haze.

I had all three cards in my sealed deck, plus Jhoira and a number of other sold Red, Blue, and green spells. In particular I had a Sporesower Thallid and two Sporolith Ancients, which by themselves meant lots of Saprolings, and just got sick with a Haze. I never got to play Fatal Attraction on Stuffy, but something like that ends games. Stuff + Attraction + Haze is an unstoppable 9 damage a turn; even without the Haze it's 5 points a turn.

At one point I had a Haze out and my opponent dropped a big beater, a 4/4 Ephemeron or something. Then I played Attraction on his beater, and he replied in kind by buffing his beater to 6 or 7 toughness. Which would have been fine, except that the Haze caused the Attraction to go off twice, dealing out 8 damage to his beater.

Red/Blue is probably my favorite combination for the Time Block, followed by Blue/Black.

The release was a lot of fun, and I came out second. I got 4 packs, $15, and a lifecounter as my prize. Not bad.

I should have waited until after my birthday to email her.

So. Kira's been quiet for the last couple of months. I emailed her in March, and again in April, and one last time just a day or so ago. Today I got a response from her, but hardly the sort I was hoping to get (though, in part, exactly what I was expecting). She apologized and said that she hadn't been ignoring me on purpose, just that she was busy with life and work and hardly had time to keep up with her local friends, let alone "someone I haven't met." She said she didn't see "us" going anywhere, just wasn't feeling a connection, and didn't want to lead me on. So ends another relationship.

I can't say I'm not disappointed. I'm very disappointed. Partly because, yeah, she was a nice girl and, I don't know, I liked the potential I saw there, and I feel like (once again) I'm not really being given a fair trial, but... It's just that it's always like this, more or less. In the last few years I've met several girls who were really nice and things seemed to be going well, and then... not. And I'm just tired. I'm frustrated and discouraged and disappointed and... tired.

Being single's nice. For what it's worth I've been enjoying myself. But it's not what I want. And yeah, maybe part of my problem is that I just want to hard, but that doesn't change the fact that when I sit and think of what I want to do with my life, "raise a family" is at the top of the list. It always has been. I can't not want it.

I just wish it didn't always feel like I was being left behind.

(no subject)

In other news, I like where This is going. In short: guy posts video on YouTube criticizing psychic. Psychic sends a take-down notice to YouTube citing DCMA; YouTube takes down video and suspends guy's account. Guy sends counter-claim to YouTube, saying Psychic has no authority to order a take-down under DCMA. Guy and Some Organization turn this counter-claim into a suit against psychic for "abuse of DCMA." If we can get precedent on the books for something like abuse of the DCMA, I think that's a step in the right direction.