Sad Trombone.

Well, I didn't do nearly as well as I had hoped yesterday. My record for matches played was 3-3, though officially it's 2-4 on the books because I played at the wrong table for round 5, which meant I got a match loss for being a "no show." Man that was a kick to the junk when I got called up to the judges table, cause until that point I was still in contention for prizes, even if not for the Pro Tour invite. Rather than drop I figured I'd at least play one more round, but ended up loosing while sitting one table up from the bottom. Not good for my ego. Still, I pulled a $20 card out of my door prize packs, so I at least got my entry fee back.

I blame a lot of it on the fact that I only got 4 hours of sleep the night before. About halfway through the tournament I was feeling pretty tired and kept having some gas pains (For some reason I wasn't farting as much as I normally have been). Still, I attribute the fact that I was still able to play at a reasonably competitive level (I avoided joining the "I was killed by Progenitus" facebook group (It's ok if you don't know what that means)) to the PCP and the fact that I am in great shape, and was eating good food regularly throughout the tournament.

So yeah, lost more rating on that, and when I got home I pretty much just made dinner and went to bed. I was literally in bed by 9:30. Great for sleep, not so great for my jumps this morning. Whenever I sleep for more than 8 hours straight, I tend to wake up with a bit of a headache. It's very very minor, but man did jumping up and down make it suck. So after about 50 jumps I said screw it, I'll try again after work.

Bryan, you and Patrick have gotten me addicted to Radiolab. I am flying through the episodes (much like I flew through Zen is Stupid when I discovered that one). I'm listening to the one you linked and I have to say that what they have to say about contact rings very true to me. One of the things I love about magic more than anything else is the community. At least once a week, usually twice, I have a group of people that I spend my evening hanging out with. We all compete and encourage each other, discuss the results from major pro tournaments and their effects on the metagame, and a lot of us even go and hang out in bars after the tournaments (or I did pre PCP). We also support each other in our hobby. We lend cards when we need them for decks and trade rides to tournaments. It also extends beyond magic. I have, in fact, asked one of my magic buddies for a ride to the doctor's.

I would also go so far as to say, that to an extent, this sense of community is something I got from WoW as well. All the relationships were online, but so are all of my relationships with my fellow PCPers. Just instead of raiding dungeons, we discuss fitness. I still feel like if I were to show up randomly in one of your towns, I'd have someone who could help me out if I needed a place to crash, or just to show me around.

When I was in Niger and would feel the absence of WoW, or Magic, it was more the communities that I missed. Certainly I had my fellow Peace Corps volunteers as a group, and my Nigerian friends, but those groups didn't have specific shared activities like my magic community and wow guild did. I think that's why I have had such a hard time when I try to date some one and they don't have any hobbies or things they do aside from work and hang out with friends. There's nothing to share, to exchange, to learn, to teach there!

Also, if you don't get the title, click here to see how I felt when I got the match loss.